NFL Week 16, Fastest 2 Minutes, Russ Disaster, Packers Running The Table And More

Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
On today's Pardon My Take, old school style, PFT and I, just the two of us, breaking down week 16 in the NFL. Crazy week, crazy weekend of football.
We had Saturday football we had sunday football christmas day football we have people clinching teams clinching spots uh teams dying everything happened and we're going to break it all down fastest two minutes as well and who's back of the week rated t for team my name is paul hayman special counsel to roman reigns and the Bloodlines wise man. Step out of the ropes and onto the island in WWE 2K25, an epic WWE themed world ruled by the one and only Roman Reigns.
The return of promos plus intergender matches, my GM goes multiplayer and more. WWE 2K25, available now.
Okay, let's go. Boy! Boy! Now in the street there is violence And I then a lot of work to be done.

No place to hang out or wash in, and then I can't blame all on the sun.

Oh no, we're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue, and then we'll take it higher.

Oh, we're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue, and then we'll take it higher. Oh, we're gonna rock down to...
It's part of my take. It's ended by Barstool Sports.
Welcome to part of my take. Today is Monday, December 26th, week 16.
Wap! Wap! Wap! Wap! Wap! Wap! Wap! going to be the last to wish you a Merry Christmas. And let me be the first to wish you a Happy New Year.
We start in Minnesota where, stop me if you've heard this before, but the Vikings played in a dramatic game that came down to the wire. The game was in hand until Saquon Charles Barkley broke loose running to the video scoreboard before anyone could catch him.
Damn, Daniel. Back at it again with the comeback as Daniel hit Daniel, Bellinger that is, for the two-point conversion and a tie game late in the fourth.
And that's where our story always ends. As the new nightmare Kirk Cousins brought the Vikings down the field for a last-second field goal, and Greg the Egg Joseph said, I'm involved in a criminal conspiracy, and it's called the Vikings being 12-3.
The Vikings, 27. Giants, 24.
We go over to Kansas City, where, in a touching tribute to my dear friend, Chiefsolic, Coach Pete Carroll says, he's always asking people to hand over any loose change. Patrick Maho-Ho Holmes said, I'll be dying if that pylon doesn't look like a little orange chimney, and slid right into it.
And speaking of jolly fat guys in a red suit, Andy Reid has a big sack full of tricks as he let his chestnuts roast on an open dumpster fire that is the AFC West no effects fan said this team might be on the decline but I'm not going out like a punk but Kadarius Tony Soprano sliced and diced his way into the end zone like it was Ralphie Cifarato's body after he might have burned down the stable with Tony's horse inside of it and speaking of being being so hungry he could eat a horse, what did Andy Reid say when he opened up his oven? Pie, oh my. Chiefs 24, the Seahawks 10.
We head over to Chicago where the wind whipped across Soldier Field and an old name dominated the game as Devin Iron Mike Singletary made the monster of the midway look like Elmo on Sesame Street. Jump up, get down, come dance with Josh.
We're moving our body to the ABCs. Dance nearby, wow, dance far away.
Now clap your hands to the letter of the day. Clap, clap.
What's the letter? Clap, clap. What's the letter? Clap, clap, clap, clap.
What's the letter? What's the letter? What's the letter? What's the letter? What's the letter? The letter of the day is W. As Josh Allen and the Bills win their third straight AFC title.
Also, shout out to all the other dads that are stuck watching Sesame Street all the time over Christmas to New Year's. And the Bills are Dawson knocks, knocks, knocks on the Super Bowl's door.
No one circles the wagons like the buffalo bills bills 35 bears 13 i can't get that fucking sesame street song out of my head dinge we go out to santa claus clara in a christmas eve battle with playoff implications purdy maybe even have been selected with the last pick in the draft, but you know who the original superstar Mr. Irrelevant was? That's right, Jesus Christ, born in a manger, doubted from a young age until he showed up at a wedding with no fish, no wine, and whap! Some spread.
Taylor High Nicki Minaj got hit in the head by Nick Bosa like it was a shoe thrown by Cardi B, and George Kittle drummer boy I have two scores for you as the 49ers were brocking around Christian McCaffrey as Slay Slay McLeod was making it rain dear the 49ers may already have five golden rings but they're looking for another 49ers 37 the Commanders 20 down to Dallas for a clash in the NFC East and a chance to come in from the cold as Gardner Mintz, shoe, shoe, shoe, shoe, shoe, shoe, shoe, shoe, I don't know, was there to remind the people he could still sling it. CD silence of the lambs ate the Eagles secondary with some fava beans and a nice candy

as the cowboys hung tough late and michael parsons yeah remember that guy decided to show up

back again this season helping big d deliver a big w unfortunately for the children of north

america the game ran late meaning mike mccarthy wasn't able to moonlight at his job climbing

down chimneys and eating cookies across the u.s cowboys 40 eagles 34

Thank you. meaning Mike McCarthy wasn't able to moonlight at his job climbing down chimneys and eating cookies across the U.S.

Cowboys 40, Eagles 34.

We go down to Charlotte where many were saying,

beware, the Panthers were a live dog,

and son of Sam Darnold might not be a serial coach killer after all, as Steve Wilkes-Stewart is willing to go full sin,

milking every last drop out of this Carolina team. And I can't see real good.
Is that the Lions defensive line or the Crimea Peninsula? Because it is very susceptible to a Russian attack, even without Cam Putin at the helm. Jared, turn your head and Goff dropped a ball, but not before Zylstra went nuts, hauling in not one, not two, but three TDs in a losing effort.
The Packers, 37. The Lions, 23.
To Pittsburgh, where we lost a legend this weekend. My good friend Franco Harris, the Immaculate Reception, the start of a dynasty.
Rest easy, Franco. What a wonderful tribute to a wonderful man.
Speaking of tributes, the Raiders season is a tribute to Ted Kennedy because this car is off the road, fully submerged, and death is imminent. The game came down to the final drive as Kenny Bickett shaved the Raiders secondary down to the skin and George Charles Pickens wrote a perfect ending for the Steel City.
Steelers, 13. Raiders, 10 10 We go down to Miami As there was white powder falling from the sky Like it was 1983 all over again In the first quarter Tua found Jalen Message in a waddle Who put the sting on the Packers early Raheem Mostert and Onions couldn't catch up to Wisconsin brat Aaron Rodgers in the

second half as that's one uh that's two uh that's a three uh interceptions. A.J.
Bob Dillon can tell

the times they are a changing as Math LaFleur has finally gotten through that French haircut of his

that you can go for it on fourth and short inside the 10-yard line. The Packers 23, the Dolphins 20.

Acapella, Jameis, here we go.

Via Zoom.

Standing on a corner, Jameis Winston down in NOLA.

Such a fine sight to see.

It's Deshaun, my lord.

And he's feeling sore.

Gonna be hard to keep a clean sheet.

Come on, Winston.

He's gone fishing.

Hank has never guessed the ball right.

Forgot to mention.

Saints go marching, 1710.

That acapella stunk.

Oh, my God.

Week 16 brought to you by our friends at Chevy.

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Tell them PMT sent you, and they'll give you a free tank of gas, $100 bill, and a cup of coffee. Chevy.com, the best truck ever created, the unstoppable Chevy Silverado.
Okay, week 16 in the books. That acapella was terrible.
PFT and I on zoom it's an old school show it's just the two of us shout out max he's producing um but it's just the two of us we're going to break down week 16 a great week and weekend of football uh and we are on zoom so bear with us if anything happens uh that acapella though though, that was – I feel bad for everyone who had to listen to that. It was pretty bad, Big Cat, and not only were you on Zoom, but we're also bi-coastal right now.
Yes. So you're West Coast, I'm East Coast.
There's a little bit of lag time in it. I was thinking that we do Beastie Boys next time.
Standing on the corner, James Winston down in – I think a rap version of that might be – that might be for the best next time we're remote yes i agree i agree all right so let's hop into it because we got a lot to discuss um and i'm excited to talk about all this football we we weren't we didn't watch for the first time all season we didn't watch any of the games together which means we have the freshest takes which is nice uh we'll do it in uh chronological order we'll We'll talk about the Bucs, Cardinals, whatever garbage this game is. The Bucs play the worst games of football possible.
They are the inverse of the team that we'll start with, the Minnesota Vikings, who played the best games of football ever. So Vikings 27, Giants 24.
The Minnesota Vikings are now 12-3. They have 11 one- 11 one score victories they're 11 and 0 in one score games that is an nfl record every single game they play rules uh and has dramatics one way or the other this one with a 60 what was it 62 yarder i think it was a 60 61 yard field goal.
So I actually was thinking about this because it feels like the Giants lose a lot of games on heartbreaking field goals, and it's true. So since 2018, the Giants have lost three games on field goals of 61 yards or farther, which is crazy because I think there have been like 12 field goals of 61 yards

or farther kicked in the history of the NFL.

So pretty wild.

It is wild in this game.

Like the Vikings had it.

The Giants came back to point conversion.

Saquon Barkley.

We did say sometimes we get things right.

Remember, we said for our Mount Rushmore, the Vikings do give up explosive runs.

That's what happened for them to the Giants to come back in this game. I have a couple questions for you off this game.
At this point, it's verbal meme, just like the Mexican standoff in the office. It's me, you, and Vikings fans.
We just got our guns pointing at each other at all times. I can't even tweet.
I tweeted that the end zone looked like garbage. The end zone did look like garbage.
It was confusing as fuck. They had white end zones with a little strip of purple and then the white out of bounds.
And it was like, it made no sense watching it being like, what's inbounds? What's out of bounds? I tweeted that picture. Vikings fans just jumped down my throat.
I respect that though, because we are in this standoff. But I have a question for you.
Is Kirk Cousins maybe clutch? I mean, Kirk Cousins has been objectively a very good quarterback this year for the most part. He's good.
The Vikings are good. They keep it close.
He hasn't made – he's being like slightly more reckless than he was in years past, and that's why they got that new coach. It was essentially to like, to unlock Kirk cousins.
Just, you know what? It's like that movie. She's all that he's taken Kirk's glasses off right now.
And he's about to mess up his hair a little bit. Once the hair gets messed up and let down, then Kirk cousins is fully capable of fucking up the playoffs.
But, um, he's like, he's a little bit more risk taking and less risk averse than he has been in the past. So I do think that he's becoming a little more, more clutch, a little more clutch.
So the risk taking leads me to my second point and Vikings fans are probably going to be like, what's going on right now? Because these guys are just, what are they doing? Why are they talking about the Vikings this way? They hate us, we hate them, whatever. I think Justin Jefferson

should be the MVP of the NFL. Okay.
And I'm saying that I know it's not numbers based like Patrick Mahomes. It's always a quarterback, but the risk taking and what Kirk Cousins is able to do there, there seems like in all these games, these one score games, the Vikings get in a situation where they're like, well, we just need Justin Jefferson to do something fucking awesome.
And he will bail us out. And he does it because he's so fucking good.
And I honestly think if you, if you did it by like most valuable player, what would that team look like without, without that player? Yeah. Obviously the chiefs would be a totally different team.
I think the Vikings would have four or five less wins without Justin Jefferson because he is always there for huge plays. He made the big catch to get them into field goal range.
He is like, it's essentially their offense. Kevin O'Connell deserves a ton of credit because of what he's done this season.
And they've gone from a team that last year made all the mistakes to a team that doesn't make all the mistakes and wins these close games. But Justin Jefferson, it really does feel like a break glass in case of emergency.
Just throw a ball to Justin Jefferson and let him be the best wide receiver in the league. And then we'll win the game.
Yeah. So I don't hate to take that he should be MVP.
He has he just surpassed Randy Moss's team record for – I think Randy had 1,600 receiving yards. Chris Carter had 122 catches in season, and Jefferson just broke that.
So now he's 209 yards away from Calvin Johnson's record. It's crazy.
He's been incredible. Anytime a player breaks one of the big – obviously if a quarterback goes out there, throws for the most yards in the history of the NFL, and he's on a good team, he's probably going to win MVP.
So let's throw that one out there. But I'm saying like a running back, if you get the single-season yardage total record in a season, you should be MVP.
If a receiver breaks Calvin Johnson's record, if you get the season record for most receiving yards, i think that you can definitely make the argument that you should be mvp especially if your team is in the playoffs and especially if you're winning all these close games and your offense has been clutch i i don't have a problem with that take it all i i kind of like that yeah i mean it's not gonna go to a wide receiver but i know i also secretly like it because yeah yeah, he's so good. I like it a little bit secretly just because if the Vikings end up having success in the playoffs, we can definitely undermine Kirk Cousins and be like, well, he just had Jefferson.
Throw it up to him. Any quarterback could win with him.
But some of these plays are kind of just throwing it in. Kirk deserves credit because, like you said, he is taking more risks than he used to because he used to take no risks and it would just be like all right if that's not there i'm gonna dump it down or take a sack um but yeah the vikings are 12 and 3 they play fun games their defense is still a very big issue i look back because uh daniel jones threw for 334 yards uh and if you look back the vik in the last month and a half, just not very good.
No offense to Daniel Jones, but not very good quarterbacks. If we had to put them in the maybe not the best passers.
Daniel Jones does stuff with his legs. So these are not very good quarterbacks that went off against the Vikings.
Daniel Jones, 334 yards. Mike White, 369 yards, Mack Jones, 382 yards, and Kyler Murray, 326 yards.
Yeah. I mean, their defense has issues.
Yeah, they're definitely susceptible. I was seeing some comments about the Giants out there earlier today.
I think it was our friend Turtle, our friend Jerry Ferrara, said that the Giants should build around Daniel Jones and Saquon in the future because they've earned the right, based on their play this season, to be built around. It's a really terrible way to build a team.
It's such a hilarious way to build. It does sound like a caller into the Mike Francesa show, or it sounds like something that Francesa would hang up on after five seconds.
But to his point, though, like Daniel Jones has kind of in his own weird way played like to the maximum of his ability under Dables. So Dables, Dables gotten everything he can out of Daniel Jones, just like KOC has gotten everything that he needs out of Kirk Cousins up to this point so far.
The difference is that I think Daniel Jones is like probably a great backup backup quarterback probably like top two or three backup in the league but i don't think i think most giants fans would agree that like this is a fun season but let's not let's not go making like long-term future let's not get married to each other here do you know what it is daniel jones is uh great if he wants to come back at a not expensive price and just be like all right right, let's see. Because they've played themselves probably out of a – they have played themselves out of a top draft pick.
So they're not going to get one of the top three quarterbacks or whatever next year. But if you're like, hey, he's played himself to a point where I don't know what the numbers would look like, like $15 million a year, $20 million't i don't know i'm not a capologist but

that feels like you know hey you deserve something and we could win games with you if we fix some other things but don't don't go around giving daniel jones like a huge contract also brian dable's look the goatee um yeah he just looks so awesome i i mentioned on twitter he looks like a guy a motorcycle, eats wings, and takes big dumps. And some guy was like, what's cool about big dumps? It's like, dude, that's what guys do.
A guy like Brian Dable, he probably takes a big dump at halftime instead of giving a speech to the team. And he probably is like, hey, guys, look at my big dump.
And everyone gets fired up and goes out there. They should make an NFL-licensed him to wear on the sidelines, like a Harley Davidson Giants mix shirt.
And then on the back, it says, like, if you can read this, the bitch fell off. Yeah.
Yeah. Or, or ask grass or her.
What is it? Ask gas or grass. Nobody rides for free.
No one rides for free. Yeah.
He just, I don't know when he decided, like, I'm just going to do the goatee and the sweatshirt. But, yeah, he looks like he could be like Paul Jr.'s understudy at Orange County Choppers and just get yelled at all day because they didn't make, like, the front tire big enough.
When he puts the beanie on and then he pulls the hoodie over his head, I don't think there's any coach in nfl that looks less like a head coach than he does like he blends in on the sidelines you're not he looks like a like a roadie for flea that's just like in charge like setting up the equipment on the sideline shit doesn't he doesn't stand out now that being said he's a fucking awesome coach but he does i think he needs to like figure out his look long term i think this is good look for him right now but every coach has to coach has to have a thing. He has to figure out if he's going to be a visor guy or a cap guy long-term.
Because the beanie and the hoodie can play short-term, but eventually you're going to have to figure out whether or not you want to rock that visor. Yeah, you want people taking you seriously or not.
You could definitely see, speaking of Francesa, if they take a bad loss like what is this guy trying to do why doesn't he why does he shave his goatee and take off the hoodie like he hasn't earned that he hasn't earned looking like that um last thing i had on this game and we can segue into the next game um tj tj hawkinson which i like to say hawkinson like the club uh was incredible and was incredible. And that second touchdown catch he made was awesome.

And it also just was happening at the exact same time

that the Lions season was diminishing into dust.

And I don't know if they want to mulligan on that,

but holy shit, he's really, really good.

And he's become such a weapon for the Vikings and makes them even more scary on offense and like they already are very very scary but to have that extra element that they didn't have before is crazy uh dude yeah the lions have zylster though so they he caught three touchdowns and also the lions problem isn't on offense right now the problem is it's on the other side of the ball but it was on Sunday. You want to just go to the Lions game? Because that was.
So Lions lost. The Panthers win 37, Lions 23.
Afterwards, Dan Campbell was seen going off the field, shaking Steve Wilkes' hand. And what was his exact quote? I'm pulling it up right now.
I think he said that was an absolute ass kicking that's a fucking great job right in his face and it was they got their ass kicked so I mean that's another example of Dan Campbell being the best loser in the NFL he's falling back into his own ways where every time he loses he's he says or does something that makes us be like fuck he's cool I wish I could play for I wish I could lose for that guy yeah what a cool guy to lose for uh i i don't i don't like the fact that he like he has gone viral so many times with this thing but every time he does something like this um it's not like he knows that the camera's right there dan campbell is not aware of where the cameras are he would have said this like that's just how he communicates with people he like if you kick his ass he'll like slap you really hard on the back and say like great job you beat the shit out of me yes and they did they got their ass kicked hard they had they gave up 240 yards on the ground uh before halftime yeah 320 total rushing yards 43 and it was only in 43 rushes so 43 320 yards, three touchdowns. They got it absolutely shoved down their throat.
It also Jared, Jared, our good friend, Jared, slightly biased, um, did have a red zone fumble. That was his first turnover in six games, which kind of tells you like where the lions are at in terms of this season.
And they're probably overachieving a little bit because you need Jared to play perfect. And even one mistake can derail the entire game.
Obviously it was more than just that mistake, but they had another, another drive that ended in the red zone. But it, I don't know if it was like a combo of the lions overlooking the Panthers or just the amount of energy

they've spent to – because, like, it's almost like in a basketball game

when you're down 20 and a team comes all the way back

and they can't finish the comeback.

It's like the Lions have used so much energy in the last month and a half

getting back to 500, and then they get there,

and it's going to be an emotional letdown at some point,

especially with two NFC North games to finish the season. But that sucked.
I mean, i mean it sucked for a lot great for the panthers can easily win the nfc south like they are it's insane that steve wilks he's four and one as an interim head coach he probably should get the job i'm a little pissed because if they make the playoffs my take from a month ago where i was like i'm already calling my panthers my comeback team of the. You can't be a comeback team if you make the playoffs, right? No, but you were early on that take, though.
Too early, yeah. You were too early, yeah.
Yeah, it's a good possibility right now. So we don't know what's going to happen in the Tampa Bay-Arizona game, but let's be honest, neither of these teams really deserves to win this game.
The Bucs suck. The Carolina Panthers making the playoffs at 6-10 would be pretty hilarious.
I don't know if that's still possible mathematically. I think they need to beat the Bucs.
I think they need to beat the Bucs so they have to get to at least seven wins. Okay, well, still, yeah, that would be fine.
I would be fine without a 7-10 Panthers team making the playoffs. Sam Darnold, he's got some pep in his step now.

I don't know what's going on.

Like the guy can run.

I actually, I keep forgetting about that one run that he had.

It was Thursday night football.

You remember that when he was on the jets and he was playing against the

Broncos.

That was the game where Blake Bortles accidentally gave everybody COVID.

And so Sam Darnold got in, had like a 60 yard touchdown run in that game.

I forgot that he's quick.

He's got like, he's sneaky fast.

He's going to be a little bit. accidentally gave everybody COVID.
And so Sam Donald got in, had like a 60 yard touchdown run in that game.

I forgot that he's quick.

He's got like,

he's sneaky fast.

He's got functional mobility out there.

And it's,

it's funny watching him run because he's,

he does still have the big head that like bobbles back and forth with every step that he takes.

But the dude is quick and you're right.

Steve Wilkes,

he's,

I think he's earned the right to be the Panthers head coach next year.

I think at this point,

if you don't bring them back,

I think the players that are here right now that are coming back next year are going to be pissed off. I think they're going to be really upset about that.
And they have a good little young nucleus, and I guess this will kind of screw – they got draft picks, obviously, for trading Christian McCaffrey. Sam Darnold is also a case where when we had that conversation how you weren't giving up on Baker.
And I was like, I don't think I'm giving up on Sam Darnold. And it's pretty much because he had Adam Gase and Matt rule as his coaches.
And like, that has to be like that. That's like adopting a dog.
That's like this dog went through the ringer. Like this dog had the worst owners possible.
So we don't know what, like it's a very very sweet dog, but it also could bite your face off. Like, so we don't know.
That's what having Adam Gase and Matt Rule as your head coaches for your formative years as a quarterback can do to you. So who do you think's had it worse? Him or Baker, who's had Hugh Jackson, Greg Williams, Freddie Kitchens, Kevin Stefanski, and Matt Rule.

Kevin Stefanski is the one that's like, okay, he was in a good foster for a while.

They bought him blue Buffalo.

They were treating him well.

But everyone else, it's like he might as well have been just tied up to a fence and left outside.

Yeah, and you'd have to throw in the fact that Baker, even just being with Sean McVay for three weeks,

has probably corrected all. What's his name? The dog whisperer.
Dog whisperer. He's Cesar Milan, yeah.
Yeah, he's Cesar Milan. Like, Sean McVay will fix your broken quarterback in record time and be like, hey, this guy looks awesome.
But yeah, Sam Darnold, I mean, it did help that the team ran for, what did you say, 240 yards in the first half? In the first half, yeah. I think that makes quarterbacking a little easier.
It probably does. Do we need to have the conversation about the Lions, though? Are the Lions soft? Dude, that game was crazy.
They just got – it was instant, too. And it's not like the Panthers.
Chubba Hubbard, nice player, whatever. Deontay or Dante, am I saying his name right? Deontay Foreman.
Like, these aren't Pro Bowl running backs. These are just, and they, it was, watching on red zone, it was just flash.
Oh, Panthers, 40-yard run. Panthers, 30-yard run.
Like, they just, it was crazy to watch the Lions revert to the September Lions. That's really what it was.
Their defense went right back to where the season started. And we know they can't win that way because that's how they started one in six or one in seven, whatever it was.
So I'm looking at the scenarios right now. You're right.
The Panthers do have to go at least seven to 10. If they, they just have to win one of their next two games.
And then just based on how the NFC South has worked out, that might be enough. If they just beat Tampa Bay and they get to seven wins, I think that they'll make the playoffs at that point.
That's incredible. And honestly, I think that like the whole season, I think that the Panthers are a better team than the Bucs right now.
I would rather watch the Bucs play a game of football than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers play. It's also crazy, and who knows how these – you know what I mean, like game plans and everything, but remember last week when the Panthers ran it like 14 times against the Steelers? It's like, why didn't you – you guys have a formula.
You just run the ball and then play action to DJ Moore, and it's open.

And Sam Darnold can do something here and there.

Like, you know what you have.

That's why the Steelers game made no sense.

But I guess it's any given Sunday thing.

I'm sad about the Lions, though.

The Lions, it feels like it's going to be pretty tough,

especially because they have to go to Lambeau week 18. And we'll get to that.
But that zombie fucker is very much alive. The Lions need some help.
They definitely need some help. But the commanders might be in a place to give it to them.
So we'll see. Yeah.
Yeah. Also, shout out anyone who lost their fantasy championship to someone fielding Shane Zylstra.
Because that's why I, like, people will always say, why do you guys talk about gambling? You don't talk about fantasy. You hate fantasy.
I know, like, when I make a bad bet, it's like, all right, it's one way or the other, like, favorite or underdog. You just do it and you're good.
Playing in fantasy for 20 years, 25 years, whatever I've played in fantasy, and having something like that happen will just – it takes the love of the game, fantasy football I'm talking about, out of you where it's like someone picked up Shane Zylstra, started him, he scored three touchdowns, and you win a season that you cared about your team for the entire four months of the season. You just lose a little love for that.
You like, you just can't, the roses can't smell as sweet the next season when you just like, how the fuck did I lose this fantasy championship when I had the best team and someone started Shane fucking Zylster and he scored three touchdowns. Yeah.
Fantasy football is like the biggest crap shoot ever. And it always ends like that.
I will say though, I just won my semifinal matchup today. I was going up against Sean Evans in the semifinals, and we made a bet beforehand that the loser was going to have to eat a part of my cheesesteak, Billy style, with the last stab hot sauce.
So I was down. I had most hurt, and that was it.
Left to go today. I was up by two points.
A coward would have sat there running back just to make sure he didn't get any fumbles i started him he fumbled in the first quarter and i was like oh fuck and i was down but then i ended up i ended up getting enough points so sean has to eat a part of my cheesesteak billy style that now we're just talking about fantasy football but i have to just give a shout out to uh friend of the program pete blackburn um i don't know if you saw but he he plays in a fantasy league i like these are the things that will make me get back into fantasy if i can get in a league like this uh the league has a rule that uh if your kicker misses an extra point it's minus 50 points so he had on monday he had matt gay going into the final going into the the end of the the week and he was like should i take the coward's way out? I'm up like 10 points, and take the coward's way out and bench Matt Gay, or should I let it ride? Everyone's like, you gotta let it ride. Matt Gay missed an extra point.
He lost 50 points. He lost the matchup.
Oh, I love that. Yeah, I mean, those rules will get me back in.
Like, if I can find a league like that where it's just stupid fucking rules, because that's what it is. It's just a crapshoot.
So just make it even more of a crapshoot, and then I'll have fun with it. Yeah, the bad beats are really why you play fantasy football.
They should actually just do that in regular football. An extra point should be worth negative one if you miss it.
So you get six points for a touchdown, and then if you make the extra point, you have seven. If you it you have five yeah I I threw out a Mike Greenberg's dumb rule this weekend that uh you should get a re-kick someone posted someone tweeted at me like kicker should get one re-kick a game I was like what if you got a re-kick but it cost your team two timeouts so then you had at the end of the games like coaches not trusting their kicker and then not calling timeouts being like, because if you have one timeout, you can't re-kick.
If you have two, you can re-kick. Just really like just fucked up shit like that.
Let's make it the stupidest rules ever. And then, but then the other coach, they can block the re-kick if they have three timeouts.
Yeah. Yeah.
I like it. So that was a long way of saying, I know that people love fantasy football.
I used to love fantasy football. I had the Danian Tomlinson back in like, whatever it was, 2006.
That was when my love was at the peak, but you have too many weird Shane Zylstra times and it just, it beats you down to the point where it's like, I, I know that I'm going to get fucked one way or the other. I can't, I can't care as much.
It just happens over time. Fantasy football is the ultimate time to be doing the real-life version

of the Alonzo morning gif where he's shaking his head no,

and then, well, okay, because you're always rooting against another bet

that you have going on.

You're always rooting against your own team to a certain degree.

You're rooting against your own playoff interests all the time.

It's just my allegiances get spread too thin sometimes

during fantasy football season. Yeah, multiple teams.
It's just too hard to track it all, but yeah. All right.
Lions are in trouble. Panthers might win the NFC South.
Looks like, by the way, the Bucs are going to lose this game. They suck.
The Cardinals just took a – it's going to be a 10-point lead. Billy doesn't get his $20,000 in cash.
Holy shit, do the Bucs suck. They stink.
How long can we go without? It's just every week. It's like maybe this is the week that Chris Collinsworth was talking about it.
He's like, Tom Brady might be able to put something together here. They just suck.
Tom Brady missed an easy throw in the first half, and Collinsworth, he just wouldn't say anything because he's not allowed to talk shit about tom brady so he just kept his mouth shut and he was like there's some things that i could say about that throw right now but i'm not going to say him it's like collinsworth we know which side your bread's buttered on we know what you're trying to do here uh but even he knows like chris collinsworth loves everybody he absolutely like everyone if you make one good play now here's a guy that's gonna get a gold jacket one day like he will love you if you just make a if you show up once on sunday night football also credit to james connor because that dude has played on some bad teams and he always shows up especially like i feel like every primetime game james connor has three touchdowns yeah and And we could just talk about the Bucs real quick right now. This game, I I'm so I just everyone needs to stop saying, well, they're going to get in the playoffs and then watch out because they're going to have a home playoff game.
They suck. They're a bad team.
I don't like it. Just stop talking about them as if there's some dark horse that could could put together.
They can't put together two wins in the regular season against shitty teams. How are they going to put together three wins, two of them on the road, in fucking January? They suck.
Also, Todd Bowles is calling plays like he's scared at the end of half. He's so bad.
So either he's the world's shittiest head coach or he knows something about Tom Brady's abilities right now that he does not trust. Either way, it's not good.
I tend to lean towards the fact that Todd Bowles might in fact be like Nathaniel Hackett level head coach just with a better roster. He's so bad.
And Bruce Arians like has a laugh last laugh because Tom Brady, you know, we, we know that it was all denied up and down, but it felt like he was like, I don't want to play for Bruce Arians anymore. Bruce Arians is like, fine, play for Todd Bowles.
I'm going to set my friend up for another chance, and he's probably going to fuck it up because he sucks as a head coach. Good coordinator.
Terrible head coach. All right.
Bengals 22, Patriots 18. This was just the reverse of the Bucs-Bengals game, where the Bengals come out, played a perfect half in the first half, outside of, I think, one Burrow interception.
But Joe Burrow had 28 first-half completions. They had 303 yards to the Patriots' 70.
And then the second half started and, like, all hell broke loose. Intercept picked six the jacoby myers touchdown which was just karmic retribution for the raiders game uh mac jones just throwing up balls and them getting caught like the patriots almost win this game and they fumble with the miranda stevenson fumbling in the in the red zone with like a minute and a half left it was a crazy game because the Bengals felt like they dominated and then it just all hell broke loose.
Yeah, so this is the game where I think, I will say Belichick has lost his touch, specifically for the fact that old Belichick would have buried Ramondre Stevenson under the field, under the 50-yard line with a shovel after the lateral incident last week.

And then he put him back in, and then he fumbled again.

Belichick uses absolutely hate running backs that fumbled.

That dude, was it Gray, that had three touchdowns, maybe four touchdowns on Monday Night Football?

Jonas Gray.

Jonas Gray.

And he basically cut him after that.

Sports Illustrated.

He slept in.

He slept in, missed a meeting.

And Belichick's like, oh, well, you got too big for your britches nobody's bigger than the team you'll never be heard from again remandre stevenson after that after starting the uh the outbreak the wuhan type outbreak of lateralitis that we had last week belichick in a former life would have just like cut him or at least sat him down put him like way behind on the depth chart at least for a week after that so he thinks about it. But when it came to this game, the Bengals absolutely kicked a shit out of him for the entire first half and up until the fourth quarter, really, because New England didn't get across midfield until the last play of the third quarter.
That's how bad things have gotten with that offense in New England.

And then we got Mac Jones diving at people's legs.

That was such a funny clip because people are starting to have the conversation

like, is Mac Jones a dirty player?

Yeah, he's been a dirty player.

That's kind of who he is.

He is football, Grayson Allen, and he always has been.

He's twisting guys' feet.

He's diving at their legs. It was a hilarious dirty play because he was so far out of it and i think it's a little bit relatable too where if you just do something shitty and you feel bad because your team's losing you just see it you see a guy that you can take out and you just let all your frustrations out on him it was funny because when that clip for people who missed it it was mac jones through an interception and the bengals players running down the sidelines and mac jones is chasing after him and then he just stops dead in his tracks and and like cut blocks eli apple and so half of the replies were like mac jones is so fucking dirty and then the other half were like well eli apple deserves it it was just perfect they're like well it's eli Apple, so who cares? But yeah, Mac Jones is so fucking dirty.
And then the other half were like, well, Eli Apple deserves it. It was just perfect.
They're like, well, it's Eli Apple. So who cares? But yeah, Mac Jones, like, and Julian Edelman called him out for his pissy faces.
Like it's the Mac Jones experience has to be just miserable at this point. If you're a Patriots fan, like there's no, there's no way around it.
Like he, he, he, whether you want to say it's Patricia, I think it's a lot of Patricia. Like, I think he, I've talked about that.
I think that he's gotten, Mac Jones has been set up to fail this year, but like his body language, those plays, uh, like twisting guys, ankles, hitting people in the balls and then, and then just screaming at everyone and like insane and like looking like he's about to cry half the time. It can't be fun to root for that guy.
It just can't be fun. It's not.
I was actually just thinking, Mac Jones, the dirty play debate, you have to... I reserve the term dirty player for guys like Vontaze Perfect, somebody that could actually do some damage to you.
When it's Mac Jones, you can accuse Mac Jones of being a dirty player, but that's like accusing Beto O'Rourke of rigging elections. It's like, well, maybe you have to be able to win one before somebody can accuse you of cheating.
Well, it's also like he's the white-collar dirty player where it's like he will cry in his mugshot when he gets convicted for a dirty play. And you're right.
Like he can't – I don't think he has the physical strength to hurt anyone. So you're just like, all right, well, this guy's kind of annoying.
And it is. It's Grayson Allen.
He's a Duke basketball player in football. Yeah.
I mean, maybe last week if he had tried to go low on Chandler Jones, it would have turned out differently. He's not making that mistake I just think that it's it's always tough when you have if you have a quarterback that like yeah I I'd have to I wish Hank was on right now because he would probably say the same thing like you want to give your guy all the chances he can have but it's it has to just be miserable rooting for him like getting up and being like all right I'm gonna ride for this guy and he's gonna look like he's crying the whole And he's going to look like he's crying the whole time.
He's going to scream at everyone. He's going to dive at people.
He's not going to be good. There's just no redeeming.
Like there's nothing that you are holding on to being like, Mac Jones does this. That's what we love.
It's just, it's just like a, it's like, it's like a long 18 hour day having to root for Mac Jones. If you're a Patriots fan right now.
Yeah. Yeah, it's tough.
It's like when you say, yeah, he's the kind of guy that, you know, if he was on your team, you'd love him. That's not the case.
No. You only love Mac Jones if you have just won a game.
And even then, you're like, okay, I guess I appreciate his fire a little bit. Yes.

But yeah, it's got to be.

Go ahead.

No, I was just going to agree with you.

It's got to be tough if you're Hank because, you know,

in addition to the lottery ball and all that stuff,

like you have to just completely swallow your pride.

You go from the guy that's got like the most uplifting positive body language

of all time in Tom Brady to Mac Jones who's just like,

he looks like he's going to call his dad to like have him sue you every time you intercept him that hit yeah he just hands him a business card for his law firm seleno and barnes yeah he's like that hit was too hard here's here's my lawyer um by the way uh the bengals i i'm a little nervous about the bengals because it feels like the injuries are starting to rack up yeah lyle collins out for the year so and our interview went viral with with whitworth because everyone was like we got to get whitworth back to the bengals for one last run which would be sick yeah i actually so i tweeted at him when they announced that lyle collins was out just like whitworth what do you say he liked the tweet so yeah i not only was it like hey at andrew whitworth i also did eyeball emojis and then he he liked that so i think we can say as first reported by part of my take andrew whitworth has expressed interest in the possibility of coming back to play for the Bengals. And he said, yeah, he was like, we gave the hypothetical $10 million and he would do it.
So I don't know. It just, the Bengals, yeah, they got to get healthy because I do think they're one of the few teams that can win the Super Bowl.
All right. Next up, let's go Chiefs 24, Seahawks 10.
Not a whole lot from this game other than Andy Reid got a cheeseburger in a shoebox after the game and that was fucking awesome that was one of those videos where I started watching it if people missed it the team got him a present for her uh I don't even know I don't think this game actually clinched anything um they just got him a Christmas present and it was was a shoebox, a Nike shoebox, and I was like, oh, fuck. Did they get him shoes? Did they get him red shoes? Did they get him, like, dad shoes? Please be something other than shoes, and then it opens it up as a cheeseburger.
It's like, thank God. It was all worth it.
It was all worth it, because his smile was fucking great when that happened. I was actually hoping that it was going to be like a donut or just some dessert as they were going through it.
And it surpassed my expectations when he opened it up. It was like a full cheeseburger that was in there.
Great job. Great job to the Chiefs.
And Andy Reid also pulled an all-time dad move and pretended to drop it halfway through and was like, oh, there's something alive in there. He's just alive.
Yeah. Yeah.
Made everyone flinch. But yeah, this game was never in doubt um i do we by the way i'm gonna get old takes exposed about my bucks rant like on this show that's gonna suck you counted out touchdown tom i counted them out that's gonna suck so bad whatever i'm just so frustrated because i once did believe in this team and i have i've quit them thankfully but i still want to be like fuck them they're not good um but they're gonna win this game now so I was wrong people who listened to 15 minutes ago that's very funny I'm an idiot shows you how big of a shit for brains I have now they're gonna win some playoff games and do everything yeah they're gonna the opposite they're gonna go to the NFC Championship game.
The Chiefs, remember we talked about it a few weeks ago, like the Chiefs defense will always be suspect, but they basically just have Chris Jones can wreck some shit, and that's what he did in this game. And I also feel like there are certain coaches that you're like, they always got a shot.
Steve Spagnuolo will always have a shot just because of those Giants teams where it's like if they can get pressure with four, and they have a couple guys like Carlos Dunlap and Carol Loftus and Frank Clark. If they can get pressure with four, nothing else matters.
So it's just I love coaches where they've done something and they did it 15, 20 years ago, and you're just still in the back of your head. You're like, well, they could do that again.
Well, being the defensive coordinator for the Chiefs must be actually even easier than being the offensive coordinator, I think. Because if you're the offensive coordinator, you just get to fuck around and you can get a little bit too creative sometimes and get over your skis.
If you're the defensive coordinator for the Chiefs, you just know that your your offense is going to build a lead so you just have to be able to like figure out ways to develop a pass defense like get get to the quarterback by any means necessary carloftis is that how you say his name the greek freak yeah he's he's greek yeah i like shout out purdue yeah i like that guy is he ohio state no he's purdue no he's purdue because i because I think he's like Ryan Kerrigan, 2.0. Yes.
But yeah, he's awesome. Frank Clark can get after the quarterback.
I like when their defense, they are one of the few units that they just go out there every week and they're like, okay, we just have to pin our ears back. It's just going to be 48 minutes of pinning our ears back and then we're going to heat the quarterback up and that's how we're going to win.
And also Chris Jones doesn't get enough credit for basically being the defensive Patrick Mahomes. He's not as good as Patrick Mahomes, but in a similar way where the Chiefs on the offense will sometimes be like, all right, Patrick Mahomes, just do something cool and we'll score points.
Like get us out of this jam. Chris Jones is like, hey, our defense isn't that great.
Just do something fucking sick and just beat everyone. He had, I saw the stat.
He had eight QB hits off of 36 snaps. So just, I don't know, one out of every four, like a little more than that was just, all right, we're just going to put, he's going to get to Geno Smith and impact the play.
That's what he does. He just wrecks shit.
Yeah, he's pretty cool. I think that they're going to miss having a player like the Honey Badger in the secondary, though.
He was such a good fit on that Chiefs defense, somebody that just is attracted to the ball and will create turnovers. Because they can give up yards all they want, and they probably will give up yards.
But they're going to get big plays on down and that's that's when they need to do it as long as they can do that then the Chiefs are pretty much pretty much unstoppable if their defense can get those stops as Patrick Mahomes is playing like at his best that he's ever played they are now uh the this is the fifth straight year that the Chiefs have 12 regular season wins that's fucking stupid that is It's crazy. That is so dumb.
Five straight years. It's crazy.
And as we reported last week, every team that the 49ers beat end up losing the next week. Yep.
Or every team that they play ends up losing the next week. Lose the next week.
All season, I think. So the Seahawks lost them last Thursday night.
They get their ass kicked by the Chiefs. And Pro Bowler Geno Smith looks like the carriage has turned into a pumpkin for Geno.
It's not great. Five out of six they've lost.
Feels like it's not going to happen to them. They still do have the tiebreaker against the Lions.
They need the commanders to fall apart some more, but this is the opposite of the Chargers or the Ravens in the AFC where it's like, ooh, no one wants to play them. I think anyone would love to play the Seahawks in the first round of the playoffs.
Yeah, and I'm not trying to take anything away from Geno. Like, what a year.
This has been for Geno's Pro Bowl or Geno Smith. That's all you have to say.
And, again, the Seahawks get two wins a weekend. They get to watch their team play, and then they get to watch the Broncos play.
That's a fact. And that's just the – even if you lose, you end up winning if you're Seahawks fans yeah yeah um okay next up saints browns saints 17 browns 10 this was just a battle of which coach was a bigger

shithead and piece of shit and dumb dumb face kevin stafanski versus dennis allen who would

flinch first uh turns out kevin stafanski would flinch first and he's the bigger piece of shit dumb dumb face and when i say all of this i'm talking about the fact that it was what was it like zero degrees minus 10 degrees i think it felt like it was negative 20 yeah just snow covered field run game all day, just run the ball, and you win the game. They have Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt.
I know Nick Chubb's a little banged up. Kevin Stefanski called 31 passes for Deshaun Watson.
And on the other side, this first half, I was sitting there watching it, and I was like, I've never hated a coach that I have no relation to.

No, like, I don't care about the Saints.

Like, Dennis Allen pisses me off so much.

Dennis Allen had started the first half.

He had nine pass attempts from Andy Dalton.

He had Wildcat with Alvin Kamara.

And then finally, with three minutes and 24 seconds left in the second quarter,

he's like, oh, I have Taysom Hill. Maybe I should use him.
Maybe this is the perfect game for Taysom Hill. Started using him, and they instantly were able to score points.
So, Dennis Allen, you get credit for being slightly less dumb than Kevin Stefanski because both of these coaches are fucking morons for spending like half of the game thinking they could throw in this weather when they have Taysom Hill on one side and Alvin Kamara and fucking Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt on the other. I don't think that there's ever been a game that's been more perfectly designed to have Taysom Hill featured in it.
And this game was ever, ever in history of football, maybe like in 1902 before Teddy Roosevelt, like made people start wearing helmets. That might be the only time time period that has been more of a matchup for Taysom.

This game, if you looked at the field, it looked like an ice skating rink there.

Just looking at the field, I was cold.

I was cold watching the fans.

The fans were told, please come down.

If you're up in the 400 level, we need you to evacuate that.

Come down into the main bowl where you can be protected against the wind because you're probably going to die if you stay up there. That's fucking BYU weather.
That is Taysom Hill running to a linebacker's face, chip his teeth, and then put him in and let him throw one 70-yard pass downfield per half, almost as like a gadget play. I agree that Dittus Allen is a complete sh shithead i don't know what he's doing as i don't i don't know what his process is like for calling an offense or what's going on there i still stand by my take that i think i think we can say now that jamis is probably hurt or very hurt and maybe gonna sue them he was maybe gonna sue them that's what i'm saying like when he got put back into that game i think they fucked up as an organization and the only possible reason why they could not be playing jamis winston is for for a liability issue that's it yes because like watching andy dalton especially in cold weather he just andy dalton's too old to be outside in that in that kind of weather i felt bad too nice and too nice yeah nice guys shouldn't be out the he should have nice guys shouldn't have to deal with those type of elements yeah too nice he's got he's got red hair red hair people should not be out in that sort of weather like i i think they can be out in the rain they can be out in the rain or the maybe a little bit of sleep but it was like it felt like it was negative 20 degrees.

We have red-haired people cannot deal with anything less than 30 and more than 80.

They just can't.

So let's be safe.

This really is turning into just watching the biggest mush alive

because the Bucs just recovered a fumble

and now are driving to take the lead.

So I am really the dumbest person to ever tweet and have a thought mid-game in a football game uh but back to this game i is kevin sofanski gonna maybe be on the hot seat i so this i'm like exposing myself as being an out of town or in cleveland because people that live in cleveland fucking can't stand the guy. Right.
They hated Baker. They hated everyone, really.
I think Cleveland fans will end up hating you if you play for a coach of the Browns at any point, no matter what happens. But as an outsider, I look at Kevin Stefanski and I see he was able to win a playoff game.
And so in my mind, I'm like, that dude should have a statue built of him outside the stadium because the Browns have been so bad for so long. But I'm starting to come around on the fact that you have Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt.
And in games like this, but it's also been outside of this weekend. It's been like a recurring thing over the last two and a half years.
He just he hates running the football. He and So 31 passes for Deshaun Watson.
It wasn't like this was, you know, they were playing catch-up all game. They had the lead for the first half.
It was never outside of a one-possession game. 31 passes.
And they had a moment, PFT, in the fourth quarter, where they had a third and two and a fourth and two because they went for it. And they passed on both of those.
Like, I don't – I just don't get it. Like, as dumb as Dennis Allen is, at least he deserves credit for, like I said, the first quarter and a half, he threw it nine times with Andy Dalton.
The rest of the game he threw it six times. And he realized, oh, Taysom Hill can win this game for us he gets credit for for realizing how stupid he is in the moment and correcting his ways Kevin Stefanski I think he might be on the hot seat like he how do you lose this game when you have a run game like them and I know Nick Chubb is a little banged up but how do you lose this game when you have a run game like that I don't know I mean who else you're gonna hire condoleezza rice is an owner of the broncos right now she's i got a name for you bill belichick oh i was gonna say urban meyer no bill belichick uh belichick's the whole thing but what if he hates the browns but that's the old browns that's the ravens that's.
That's the Ravens. Okay, what if Belichick and Saban got back together? What if? Go to Cleveland.
I'm just saying, what if he went and won a Super Bowl? What's the only thing that Belichick could do that could one-up Tom Brady's legacy now that Tom Brady went to the Bucs and won a Super Bowl? Win a Super Bowl with the Cleveland Browns. I honestly think going above .500 with Matt Patricia as your offensive coordinator is even harder than winning the Super Bowl as the Kirk's the Browns.
Bill Belichick spent this entire season being like, watch me tread water with 100-pound weights on my ankles. Yeah, I actually was thinking that if you look back to 2019, you could make the argument that every single thing that belichick's done losing tom brady making his son defense coordinator hiring matt patricia to call plays it's not crazy to think that he's just been punishing himself for not drafting hunter renfro since then yeah he's just like a piece of shit like looking himself in the mirror every day i fucking hate you.
But there has been a lot of smoke. We're not making this up.
Hank would call it fan fiction. I think Belichick will stay with the Patriots.
I think he'll just end his career with the Patriots. He'll end his career with all-time most wins, all that.
But there has been smoke. You have to admit there's been smoke.
And wouldn't that be the perfect way for him to finish, is to take the Browns to the Super Bowl? Like the impossible. It's the Browns or the Lions.
That's the impossible. No one's done it.
When we get off on tangents like this, we have to admit to ourselves, we all have a little Peter King in us. Can you imagine that storyline coming full circle? I think putting – I mean imagine teaming urban meyer up with deshaun watson in cleveland oh boys are back in town the most hateable team of all time yeah let's i mean let's do it let's do it let's the bad boys of football let's fucking do it um all right let's take a quick break for one ad and then we'll get back games.
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Go to rocketmoney.com slash take rocket money go to rocket money.com slash take that's rocket money.com slash take next up bills 35 bears 13 we don't have to spend a lot of time on this bears had him in the first half big time big time had uh tracer sorley's dad looks like johnny sins so that i would know what johnny sins looks like

bonk uh i was thinking moby you remember that guy moby that used to be everywhere like every song featured moby in the 1990s that's that's what i'm saying um that's ashburn virginia's finest by the way my friend my friend just texted me which is a very apt analogy said tracer sorley's dad looks like he owns a suburban MMA gym. That absolutely is the case.

Or yeah, or like. just texted me which is a very apt analogy said trace mcsurley's dad looks like he owns a suburban

uh mma gym that absolutely is the case or yeah or like a crossfit gym um yeah but he it's actually called smashing pumpkins because he looks so much like billy corbin you just do a workout where you throw you throw giant gourds around it's a combo gym it's you can do mma on one side and crossfit on the other.

Yeah, he is

jacked up. It's a combo gym.
You can do MMA on one side and CrossFit

on the other. Yeah.

He is jacked up. It was funny.

Before the game started, I think Chris

Collinsworth was talking about

getting to meet Trace McSorley. And he's

like, you know, Trace McSorley,

he thinks that he has

he's the best quarterback in the world

when he steps onto the football field, even

if he's the only person in the world that thinks that way. He was like throwing him under the bus a little bit.
But, I mean, I guess he's playing manageable football right now. He's not the worst quarterback we've seen play this weekend.
That's a fact. Definitely not.
We'll get to that. But your Bill's Bears game.
Bill's Bears, yeah. The Bears, I know that I said that I would like the Bears to mix in a win.
That doesn't seem like it's going to happen because they're not a good football team. They do at least fight.
Like every game, it feels like for at least a half, they're in it. So they haven't quit quit.
So I guess I got to give them credit for that. But, yeah, the Bills were just waiting for, like, when are we going to demolish them? And then it happened.
And it was also a reminder because we were not in the office this weekend. How much it sucks to have to watch your team on a stream.
So I was watching Red Zone for the first time in forever as like my soul live, which I drives me nuts because like every play I think is going to be a touchdown or interception and i and it's not it's like a oh scott hansen just dipped in for a five yard out but watching the bears on delay and then seeing things happen and then watching like i was looking at my computer seeing it happen on my tv and then watching on the computer just being like well this sucks it's just a miserable experience we haven't done it in forever we've always we've been able to watch every game live for seven years now yeah it's tough the only nice part about finding an illegal stream is going to the chat section over on the side and like seeing what kind of hilarious links to foreign scam websites like what what uh lithuanian bitcoin website is being advertised over here in the chat that somebody's just spamming it with um that's that's that's the only redeeming quality to that sort of thing and then you get red zone on tv spoiling it for you and um scott hansen so i watched a little bit of red zone this weekend uh i remembered how much i do miss the sound of scott hansen's voice He's a very reassuring voice. It's the voice of when he speaks,

it sounds important because you think that something important is going to

happen afterwards.

So like it's very authoritative.

And I think we're going to get Scott Hansen as the NFL pivots over to

YouTube.

I think Scott Hansen is going with it.

Yeah.

Siciliano.

I don't,

I don't think Siciliano is going.

I think Siciliano is going to be he's

gonna be looking for a job it's tough tough time to be a journalist specifically a red zone journalist a red zone journalist yeah no they've like 50 of nfl red zone jobs have been lost in the last 12 months it's crazy yeah won't we think of our our red zone journalists when we talk about recession. It's bad.
But, yeah, shout out the Bears. I bet on the Bears' money line.
I just figured, like, what the hell? Why not? Maybe it's a look-ahead game. First half, look great.
You look good in the first half. I watched a lot of the game.
And then the Bills, just remember, they're the Bills. Fun fact about the Buffalo Bills, because people, you know, they talk about Josh Allen.
They talk about their receivers and their passing game. Did you know that the Buffalo Bills because people you know they talk about Josh Allen they talk about the receivers and their passing game did you know that the Buffalo Bills have the highest yards per carry in the NFL I did not I mean Devin Singletary was Devin Singletary froze Jaquan Brisker in open space like it looked bad so bad so so bad yeah they ran the ball so well down the down the Bears thats.
The Bears are a bad team. Let's just be brutally honest.
And I think Luke Getze, the Bears' offensive coordinator, is fully committed to the tank because they ran the offense they ran in September where it was run the ball, run the ball, third and long, hope Justin Fields can do something awesome. And credit to Matt Milano because a lot of the reason why Justin Fields didn't have one of those crazy runs is Matt Milano is just really fucking good.
And you can actually point to where the Bills season dipped a little when he was out. He is that important to that defense.
Here's how you stop Justin Fields. You just spy him.
You just put a guy there to spy him. Problem solved.
Get Matt Milano on him. The are two other things from this game.
One is Josh Allen has the most offensive touchdowns in his first five years of his career all time. He passed Dan Marino, so he has 174.
Dan Marino had 171. This is a stat that Josh Allen's incredible, but it's also one of those stats that, holy shit, Dan Marino was out of this world good because he did that in the 80s when that was not what football looked like.
And then the other one, I wasn't going to talk about it because I thought it was just like one of those things that just happened and they had a fun time. But we tweeted about it, so I might as well.
Kind of a cool moment. After the game, the Bills got stuck in Chicago, and Josh called me, FaceTimed me while I'm sitting on my couch, and he's like, can you open your River North bar, the Barstool River North bar? I was like, yeah, give me like 10 minutes.
Shout out Rick, who runs it, was able to find staff to get there on a Christmas Eve, and the Bills rented out Barstool River North. So I'm hoping that Josh Allen, when the Bills win the Super Bowl and they do the football life, will be like, it was Christmas Eve.
I made a call to Big Cat, and that was the catalyst for the whole team to win this thing. So if that's not true, which I would say there's a 0% chance that's true, I think Josh Allen will do me a solid and just say it, and I'll just be able to walk around saying that for the rest of my life, that, like, you know that Bill's Super Bowl? All it was was one call from Josh Allen, one call to Rick, and we had it all set up.
I heard that's where they really came together as a team. They've never been as close as they have.
Like, you'll learn a lot about people being stranded in the same city. You know what this was? This was like Josh Allen and Stefan stefan diggs's version of trains planes and automobiles they're trying to get home for christmas to their families they can't make it guess what let's make the best of a bad situation and let's find let's discover friendship on the road via the barstool river north bar it it was a beautiful story and um i did see some people been like, why did they open for them? Like the bills just beat the, the bears suck.
There's no rivalry between the bills and the bears. If it was the Vikings or the lions or the, or the Packers.
Yeah. Fuck yeah.
Don't open a bar for them. The bills like Josh Allen's the most likable superstar in the NFL.
I fucking love him. He's our best friend.
So when he calls and says, can you open the bar? Fuck yeah, I'm going to try to figure out a way to open the bar. And again, shout out to staff of Barstool River North.
Because Rick, like, I called Rick. And he's like, give me 10 minutes.
And then he called me back. He's like, yeah, we'll open at 730 for them.
And it's like, to call your staff on Christmas Eve and get enough people to come in. Just a great story all around.
And again, when they win the Super Bowl, we can just say it was, you know, it was part of my take. And it was that friendship that did it.
Also, he still owes us $150 million, right? That's true. Or no, $15 million.
That's true. He owes us $15 million.
Tell you what, we'll knock some of this off his tab. How does that sound? Yeah.
$14 million. He14 million.
He owes us $14 million now. I don't want to dispute what you're saying about there's no rivalry there and it's just guys helping dudes out.
But I would like to ask Max. Max, if we're talking about good sports towns, if the Bills just beat the fuck out of the Eagles, would you approve of opening up the Barstool Philly Tavern to let the Bills hang out all night and drink all your beer in your face after they just beat you? And pay and pay and probably tip very well for some people who went in and worked on Christmas Eve, probably made their Christmas Eve too.
And also throw in. Answer the question.
Would you let your city be cocked by Josh Allen on Christmas Eve? Throw in the fact that also Josh Allen's my best friend. It's all relative.
The Bears aren't looking to win right now. Right.
If the Bears were good and that was a heartbreaking loss, I probably would have been like, Josh, I can't do this. Yes, exactly.
Like, seasons I didn't give a shit You could have done whatever you want So if you're in that sort of mode and you lose Then yeah it would be exciting to have your guys come in Yeah if the Bears Were fighting for a playoff spot And the Bills beat them And they lost out on the playoffs And Josh Allen faced I probably would have been like i'm not picking up because he's gonna talk shit you know what i mean like i would have i would have just ignored the face time but he is my best friend and he is the most likable guy in the nfl so fuck yeah i'm gonna help him out and also it's good publicity let's be honest it's good publicity for for partial river north don't

get me wrong side of it i'm glad it happened i just wanted to hear the philadelphia perspective on that because i figured it'd be a little bit different so you so you agree with it given the context given the context yes other people in philly might might be mad at me for saying that but i thought that's because other people was cool when you sent that text yesterday and you were like well major FOMO like imagine if we had already moved to Chicago and it was it was cool when you sent that text yesterday and you were like, well, major FOMO. Like imagine if we had already moved to Chicago and it was it wasn't Christmas Eve and we could just go party with the Bills for a night.
That would have been fucking awesome. Yeah, I actually thought about flying to Chicago last night just to party with the Bills.
Just be like, oh, gosh, crazy. Looks like I'm stuck here, too.
I mean, I would I was the minute I set it up. I just sat there and i was sitting on my couch and i was like shit i really wish i was with those guys tonight that would be fucking fun did you send white socks dave down i didn't i didn't because i figured that would be well it's christmas eve but it would also be a little awkward if anyone showed up that wasn't a member of the Buffalo Bills because they literally opened the bar for them.

So, all right.

Next up, Ravens-Falcons.

This game sucked.

The Ravens are just a really good defensive team that's waiting for Lamar Jackson to come back.

Yeah.

John Harbaugh might be top three, top four coach in the NFL.

We should recognize that every now and again. Just repeat it he's like he's a little bit of a boring guy uh he gets most of his face time on tv when he's like talking to lamar and lamar is like let me go for it and he's like okay um he gets he's a guy that i feel like his coordinators get a lot more recognition than he does which is great because he's had some great coordinators over the years.

But Harbaugh's just a very, very good head coach,

like top three, top four in the entire league.

He's a great head coach, and I do think that the Ravens,

I'm upgrading them in my power rankings to team nobody wants to play

in the playoffs because they'll ugly up any game.

Their defense is really good. And if Lamar is back healthy, which it seems like he's going to be week 17.
So next week there, they could, they could beat anyone. And, and it is kind of similar to the Titans where the Ravens not being a one seed, not being a team that everyone's looking out for makes them way more dangerous.
Yeah. And going to get it got flexed next week so we got pittsburgh at baltimore they never play this game at baltimore they always play this game in pittsburgh so the night game in baltimore it's going to be probably wearing their black uniforms we're going to get ravens fans rocking the the camo purple shorts in the cold weather that's my fucking favorite when you get the real balmer guys out there just just they're they're stealing valor but they're camo purple shorts in the cold weather.
That's my fucking favorite. When you get the real Baltimore guys out there, they're stealing valor, but their camo fatigues are in no combat theater in the world.
It's the purple, black, silver combination of the camo shorts that I'm very excited about. And then that game doesn't really matter, actually, for the Ravens in terms – I'm looking at the playoff percentages right now.
It does for the AFC North because the Bengals play the Bills on Monday Night Football, and then the Ravens play the Bengals Week 18. So if the Bengals lose to the Bills, Week 18 becomes for the AFC North.
Yeah, so it's all about Week 18, that Cincinnati Ravens game. So it's going to be awesome.
I can can't wait to watch it these two teams don't like each other very much but the uh the Falcons on the other side of the ball uh they are I think they're they lead the NFL in terms of teams that just won't fucking die the Falcons are dead they should have been dead a thousand times it's like the Falcons, Packers. There are a few teams that just won't die, but the Falcons have just lost so many games.
It seems they should be out of the playoffs by like a month. It seems like they should have been mathematically eliminated like Thanksgiving, but they're still hanging around for some reason.
Yep, it is. It's crazy.
It's crazy. And I'll actually push back on the stolen valor i think the way the ravens plays football um and having to root for like the way the style they play i actually think the u.s military stealing valor from from baltimore fans by adopting by cosplaying as ravens fans yeah yeah it's the it's become the reverse the best is that they they wear shorts is the camo shorts it's like no in no branch of the military are you rocking shorts but i love it man i love it it's been there i think every other team has tried to do the camouflage and their home team colors and they just didn't sell it all so they didn't bring them back it was like a one spring they offered, okay, we've got this new design where you're going to be able to buy like Bengals gear in black, orange, and white camouflage.
But just nobody bought it. But the Ravens fans, they fucking love this stuff.
It became the unofficial dress code of Baltimore to wear this everywhere. So it just became like a localized thing just out of like targeted marketing to the people of baltimore um all right next up texans 19 titans 14 i think mike vrabel put it perfectly after the game he's like we're just not equipped to overcome turnovers so it's a matter of fact as you can get about the state of your football team.
If we turn the ball over, we're fucked. And the Texans are sneaky good.
I know that's stupid. Okay, they played the Cowboys to the last drive.
They went to overtime against the Chiefs, and they beat the Titans. Maybe they're not sneaky good, but they are absolutely frisky.
They're the friskiest two-win team you could get. Yeah, they might be the best two-win team of all time.
They've played some good teams down to the end, but I think that they're just really, really good. Lovie Smith has managed to do – basically he's threaded that needle where it's like they can't obviously tank everything they have to be competitive enough to be able to lose games um believably so it doesn't look like they're doing it on purpose so lovey lovey has mastered that art and he's got the titan of the texans um actually like they're i would say that the bears have played worse football than the tex have, at least recently.
Yeah, the last month. The Texans, they're going to probably draft ahead of the Bears, but it's not for one of trying.
Like, they've almost fucked around and won a few of these games. Yes.
No, they definitely have. In this situation, I think it's more a case of the Titans just being the most injured team in the NFL.
I think they've got 20 players from week one that are no longer playing, no longer either they're injured or they're on IR or they've been cut for whatever reason. So all their linebackers are gone.
The entire offensive line is gone. Quarterback, fullback.
Basically, they've got derrick henry and that's about it and and derrick henry even he had that long touchdown run and then he was kind of bottled up for the rest of the game and had a fumble which he he hasn't been a fumble guy but he's fumbled four times in the last in the last three weeks um so, the Titans, the good news for the Titans,

because you play in the AFC South, none of this matters,

and week 18 is winner takes all.

Yeah.

So it doesn't matter.

It literally doesn't matter.

If they lose to the Cowboys, it still doesn't matter.

If the Jaguars win next week and the Titans lose,

it still doesn't matter.

If the Titans win week 18, there's a weird tiebreaker. Oh no, it's division record.
So they'll have a better division record than the Jaguars in the same record. If the Titans win week 18, they'd be 1-1 against the Jaguars and have a better division record.
I think they'd be 4-2 overall and the Jaguars would be 3-3 and they would win the AFC South. So it's all week 18 i'm interested to know uh knowing that what do you think the line is against the cowboys cowboys at the titans next week in a game that literally does not matter at all if you're the titan in fact the titans are probably going to rest all their starters because there's no point in them playing at all next week.
So Ryan Tannehill, he's had ankle surgery.

He won't be available even if I think, yeah, in week 18,

he's not going to be available for that either.

So they're just going to ride with Malik Willis

for the last two weeks of the season.

And Max, can you look ahead right now

and see what that spread is going to be?

I will look now.

Whose line is it anyway?

I'm going to guess.

Cowboys minus eight and a half.

Yeah, minus.

Fuck, I was going to say that.

Minus.

I'll go minus nine on the road.

Max, look it up for us.

Still looking.

Still looking.

Oh, no.

Malik Willis is not good.

Stinks. He almost had 100 yards this week, though.
So close. See, if I was Mike Vrabel, I would look at that stat sheet, and maybe I'm just being an idiot, and this is why I'm not a head coach, but there's got to be some mental check mark that you make as a quarterback.
Like, boom, I got 100 yards today. Pretty good.
100 yards must feel so much better than ending the day with 99 also shout out davis mills i love when a uh immobile big white quarterback says fuck it i'm awesome i'm michael vick that touched that uh it ended up being a touchdown that run he made where he just got blown up and fumbled into the end zone was so funny because you can see the moment where he's like, fuck this.

I got this.

And then you could see the moment where he's like, oh, fuck.

I do not have this.

And it happened within like a second of each other.

Because you're a big dude like that.

You've probably been used to being the most athletic person in your high school, one of the most athletic people at your college.

You can run past people.

You can run over people. That reminded me of when Sage Rosenfels did that when he was on the Texans and he just got helicoptered and lost the ball.
It was like fourth down and they ended up losing the game because it was sick. Alright, ready? I'm going to find this line faster than Matt.
Yeah, I had it. Nine and a half.
Wow. PFT, you win that? That's going to be an awesome game.
That's going to be a perfect glimpse into what an actual tank looks like in the NFL. It's going to test Al Michaels to the limit.
To the absolute limit. He's already mailed in the whole season.
He's going to be so mad about that game. Oh, my God.
Wait a minute. I may have been looking at a different.
Oh, no.

No, Max.

PFT, you didn't win that one.

I may have messed that up.

How did you mess that up?

I thought we were talking about Titans.

Titans, Cowboys.

Okay, okay.

Jeez.

You got it.

Nine and a half.

Nine and a half.

You got it.

You got it. Okay.
Next up. Nine and a half.
You got it. You got it.
Okay. Next up, Niners 37, Commanders 20.
PFT? Oh, and Carson Wentz is back. Yeah, thank you.
So that's what I was going to say. Why the fuck is Carson Wentz back? Can somebody explain this to me? I feel like I'm pretty good at watching football.
Taylor Heineke is a much better quarterback than Carson Wentz. The team plays harder with Taylor Heineke.
He cares more. Carson Wentz looks scared when he's out there.
Carson Wentz, his shins are so long. Have you noticed that about him? Yeah.
How long is his fucking... He wears the long socks, too.
I can't stand... I thought I got rid of Carson Wentz.
I lied. I spent six months lying to myself about how excited i was for carson wentz just trying to delude myself into being able to watch football on sundays on television you can't you cannot send carson wentz back out there because it's not like we are out of the playoff hunt in fact no you're in the playoffs our own destiny right now going to carson wentz to me feels like that's a move that you make if your season's fucked and you're like okay let's just trot this guy out here uh we control our own destiny we just need to beat the browns and then we need to win a game in week 18 which who knows what's going to happen at that point uh because obviously like there's a very good chance that d Dallas might have already wrapped up their seed by that point.
So we need to beat the Browns and the Cowboys in the next two weeks. Why are we getting rid of Taylor Heineke and going back to Carson Wentz? This is fucking torture.
Okay, so I have a theory. It's not really a theory.
It's more just an explanation, and I don't agree with it because I'm a Taylor Heineke guy through and through. I do think there's an element of Taylor Heineke that you're riding the hot hand and you're saying, let's see how long this can go.
In the last two weeks, he's had some pretty bad turnovers that Ron Rivera probably is saying, what's the downside of Carson Wentz?

He turns the ball over.

Well, we're having that anyway.

What's the upside?

He got two MVP votes.

So why not?

Like Taylor Heineke, without the turnovers,

you keep playing him.

But once the turnovers start popping up,

that's going to happen with Carson Wentz as well.

But the upside probably is higher,

even though I'm a Taylor Heineke guy.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so I know the real answer to this. Okay, this is mostly me just getting it off my chest, like what the fuck? Why are we playing Carson Wentz? Why aren't we playing Heineke? It's obvious to anybody that's watched this team play this season.
Taylor Heineke works for whatever reason. It just works.
It's just dumb, but it works with Taylor Heineke. That's him in a bottle it's dumb it makes no sense but it works and we like it the real answer i'm afraid taylor heineke gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars every time he plays in a football game carson well they have to win they have to win carson wince is guaranteed millions of dollars this year.
I think it was like $23 million. The guy that's writing the checks, now granted, he's not involved in the team operations anymore.
It's his wife, and she's taking it over from him. And Dan Snyder is nowhere near the football team this year.
But if he were, he would probably be pretty pissed off that the guy that he's paying millions of dollars to is not playing, even though he's healthy. And there's another guy that he has to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to every time he wins, which he has been winning recently.
And so being the stingy guy that he is doesn't want to pay all that money. Now, that's what I would say, Big Cat, if maybe I had been paying attention to anything that's happened to this franchise over the last 25 years, which I really haven't that much much so i guess i'm just throwing shit against the wall and see if it sticks right now um but i it pisses me off because i love this team i think that they're capable of doing some fun but um it this smells like dan snyder to me i can smell him it it sucks because taylor heineke carson wentz having to root for carson wentz isz is just a curse.
It's just not fun. He's a bummer.
Yeah, he makes me sad. Yeah, now having to root for Carson Wentz to somehow salvage your playoff hopes is an extra bummer.
So I'm sad about it. I kind of understand it with the turnovers.
This game, the

Niners are just clicking. I mean, Nick

Bosa is a defensive player of the year.

17 and a half sacks. Someone tweeted

at me that he was signing stuff

in the offseason. Nick Bosa

20 sacks, like calling

his shot, which is so fucking cool.

But this Niners team

is just rolling. Brock Purdy

is the first quarterback to start 3-0 with multiple touchdowns in each game since Kurt Warner, the only other one to do that when Kurt Warner won the Super Bowl. The Niners are just so much better than a team like the Commanders right now.
That's just kind of – like it's not really Taylor Heineke's fault that they had to play the Niners, who are humming and playing insane defense.

Do you know that the Niners have not given up more than 60 yards rushing

to a single player this year?

That's crazy.

That's insane.

They're so good.

They're so good.

That's insane.

Yeah.

I think the 49ers are playing the best of any team in that division,

or excuse me, in that conference.

Yes. I'm going to put a future on the Niners niners actually like as we speak as we're talking about it the price isn't probably great i'm gonna see what the price is right now now max would say and and i'd agree with him in a little bit uh brock purdy going to the link that's their ace in the hole i think that defense travels big cat i i do too no i i listen i'm scared to death of the niners with my eagles future but that would be the only that would be the only thing you could put in your back pocket being like can brock purdy handle the link probably throw batteries at his head i think that he can i feel like this is like kyle shanahan he's he's had such bad playoff losses you know that that shit burns him up too like he wants to get back i feel like this is you can make the argument is this kyle shanahan's best coaching season it might be it might be his most talented team kittle kittle is unlocked fully he got kittle was so awesome on sunday awesome um oh by the way i should i should throw this out there the nfl did reach out and apologize to the commanders for fucking up the end of that Giants game.

So that should not count as a loss.

Did they put a PS on it being like,

and Dan Snyder, if you don't sell the team,

there's more of where this came from?

Yeah, basically.

That's what they were getting at,

which is one of those situations where I can't be even that mad about it

because I do want Dan Snyder to sell the team.

If that means that we miss out on the playoffs this year, then so be it.

But I also think, and tell me if I'm way off base on this big cap,

but I think that Greg Kittle should apologize to me.

Oh, yeah, I think so too.

Because during the week when he was doing his press conferences and stuff, getting ready for the Commanders game, he was wearing part of my take merchandise. And then he goes out and he dominates me.
I'm treating this like it's a dress code violation on our end where you should not be allowed to wear team brands of our opponents while wearing PMT merchandise at the same time. So I think I think George is the only one that we can allow that for because he's so ride or die and he's so ride or die.
I have one more for you. He actually hit me up.
He's like Kyle Shanahan keeps asking me where I got this sweatshirt. Can you send him one? So in a press conference soon, Kyle Shanahan will most likely be wearing a Legends part of my take sweatshirt.
So I think we just have to ride with those guys. Like, that's pretty cool.
But not during the week where they're playing against me. I know, I know.
That's when it's a dress code violation as far as I'm concerned. Okay, that's fair.
But it will be cool if Kyle Shanahan wears it in a press conference. We have to think of the brand.
We have to. Okay, that's fine.
But just so you know, I'm sending Kittle a letter right now to his locker room, and he's going to be warned. Okay, strong warning.
Strong warning. Strong, strong warning.
All warning all right next up cowboys 40 eagles 34 max turn your turn your camera on we gotta talk this game sucked for the eagles they should have won it it was fine like a million injuries Oh, we're going to do the it was fine again?

Say what you have to say. Well, I mean, it was an awesome game.
Gardner Minshew played his balls off. A couple bad interceptions.
I mean, whatever. It was – he played very, very good.
The game was meaningless, obviously. It's what I alluded to on Friday that there's a feeling like, you know, the Eagles know in the back of their heads that this game doesn't mean anything if they take care of business.
But they still obviously wanted to win when you're going up against the Cowboys. I just – the defense just fell apart.
It's the injuries. It's like Lane Johnson, Maddox, Jordan Davis.
All these injuries scare me, Max, but you'll say it's fine and you'll say it in that tone that will make me feel like nothing is fine. No, this I'm actually very – I came out of that game feeling better than I did going into it.
What? Why? Did you hear the injuries I just said? Well, injuries aside, I think everyone's going to be fine. Are we turning injuries off? Jordan Davis will be back.
Hurts is obviously coming back. We still have to wait to see what's going on with Lane Johnson.
I was very convinced that he just got hit in the balls, and that's what he was doing. It turns out that that's not the case.
But even with the injuries, at home, it was 15 yards away from winning that game against the Cowboys. Like, how do the Cowboys feel confident about the playoffs after that game?

I mean, CeeDee Lamb is pretty good.

I think they probably feel pretty good about him.

But, like, it was a six-point game, and we weren't even close to where we're going to be in the playoffs. Max, here's the deal.
The injuries are not good for you guys right now. Jalen Hurts, I do think that he's actually injured.
No, he'll be back. I did a little bit more research on it and saw exactly like what part of his shoulders fucked up is this part right here which is good you saw the graphic you'd rather have it be the SC than the AC which is on the outside because the AC will fuck you up more like long-term throwing it but that's gonna yeah research you saw the same graphic I saw the Big Ben graphic where they light up one part of your body.
No, no, no. I actually like, I read up about, about the different types of shoulder sprains.
Was that on, was that on the broadcast? I think so. And I saw it on Twitter.
It was just, it was just the guy's body like here, dude from operation. Uh, I was like, Oh, okay.
That makes sense. I still don't know what that means.
No, no. I, I looked into i looked into it because i was like okay the sc joint i've never heard of anybody spraining the sc part of the shoulder that's like the sternum so he's going to be able to to pass the ball more effectively once it gets better but it's going to hurt like shit when he gets tackled when he's running the ball so he's probably not going to want to run the ball quite as much uh but it is going to be like a couple more weeks until he's 100 that's just that's but we have a couple more weeks like we have weeks to get healthy like we're gonna beat this we're gonna beat the saints at home next week like that's just that's just going to happen and then you have you're gonna get the i'm saying this out loud and but like we're going to have three weeks for everyone to get healthy for the second round of the playoffs.
Yeah, okay. So on the defensive side, Max, did you think maybe we shouldn't play zone defense anymore against Dak Prescott after he completed his first 24 passes against it? Yeah, Dak looked good.
Dak looked good. The pass defense looked very bad.
Pass rush still looked really good. Yeah, I mean, there was just some very boneheaded plays in the secondary that was frustrating to watch.
But then again, like, you haven't seen that that much this year, so I'm not going to overreact to one game. All right, let me ask you this.
If you were to, like, split up in your own mind the reasons why you're pissed off, and I get the general feeling that Eagles fans are pissed off for one of two reasons most of the time. One is because they're not getting enough respect, right? That pisses you off even when you know that you're a good team.
And then the second reason that you might get pissed off is if you know that secretly you're not as confident as you want to to be and so then you just lash out because that lack of confidence where are we at in terms of splitting it up is it like 50 50 uh if lane johnson is back by the second round of the playoffs i'm as confident as i could be the second round okay so you're penciling in yeah okay yes i'm i'm i'm i'm less attached, obviously, because it's just monetary and not a fan of the Eagles, but I would say I'm a lot more worried than Max is at this point. Yeah, I kind of get the sense that Max is getting so mad because he knows that he should be a little bit worried.
Yeah, the injury, yeah. I mean, I'm not worried about Hurts.
Like, I think Hurts is going to be fine. I like I don't that could just be me refusing to accept his shoulder.
But like, I don't think that's the case. No, we're making some progress.
Yeah. I haven't allowed my brain to even for a second think that Hurts isn't going to be 100 percent like right.
Okay. No, I'm still standing by that.
I'm more worried about Lane Johnson because if he's hurt, then that's a big issue. That last play, the last play that Gardner Minshew just had to throw it up.
I still think he managed. Whoever came in for him, yeah, got absolutely blown up.
And there was a crosser that was going to be wide open if he had like three more seconds of time. Also, Nick Sirianni.
I know this game doesn't matter. One of the dumbest things I feel like you can do is when you have a one timeout left and there's like 30 seconds and you have a big play that is in the field.
So it doesn't go out of bounds. And then you run up up and spike it wasting a down when you that's why you have the one timeout the spike was really bad like the spike was really use the timeout there regroup don't waste the down that you then ended up needing like it makes no sense especially when you're going for the touchdown like i understand right like if you're if you need a field goal then the the timeout is much more important to switch personnel but like you're thrown to the end zone anyway like you're the ball the ball is going out of bounds or it's going to be a touchdown like why do you need that one time out it was very very weird clock management um devante smith was incredible unbelievable unbelievable and shout out ty hilton had no idea he was on the Cowboys oh yeah no just show so here's here's a crazy T.Y.
Hilton stat that's actually a ricocheted Deshaun Jackson stat okay uh T.Y. Hilton has 17 receptions of 50 plus yards over the last 10 seasons 17 receptions of 50 plus over the last 10 seasons tied with Tyreek Hill and AJ Green for the second most in that span Deshaun Jackson has 30 such catches in that span that's crazy big time deep T.Y.
Hilton just out of nowhere I couldn't believe it it was like T.Y. Hilton what a grab what he's still playing Devontae Smith he's probably got a vertical leap of like 55 inches it's crazy he just catches everything so good there were times where Minshew was just throwing balls up and just hoping that Smith was coming down with him and he just was and this game was like it just it gave you everything you wanted like when when we knew halfway through the season that this game was circled for Christmas Eve, it delivered all the hype with Gardner Minshew.
And it's very funny that the Cowboys and Eagles could very well likely play again in the playoffs, and they're one and one, both playing the backup quarterback. So we have no idea.
Like, no idea who's the better team at this moment. We blew them.

We blew out their backup quarterback.

We were a shitty spike all the way.

Yeah, but Max, you just lost to them.

I know, I know, I know.

Yesterday.

But, like, we should have lost.

Whatever, whatever.

Whatever.

Okay.

It's been coping.

You're not mad.

Last game from Saturday, the Francoanco harris game just a terrible game uh but it was worth it in the end because the steelers won kenny pickett throws a laser to george pickens derrick carr i he's just i know that everyone feels bad for him but it's also his fault. He tries really, really hard, and he cares a lot, and everyone's like, oh, man, he doesn't deserve this.
He kind of does sometimes because he sucks, and he's been sucking in the second half of games. Yeah, actually, there's a pretty good reason why he has sucked in the second half of games because they've got this guy on their team named, I don't know if you've heard of him, Big Cat, but his name is Devontae Adams, and he plays wide receiver on the Raiders.
And so in the second half of games, when the Raiders are busy blowing their 7.5-time leads or more, it's because Derek Carr has had more passes after halftime caught by the opposing team than by Devontae Adams so in those in those games he's got five interceptions in the second half and three completions to Devontae Adams in the second half Devontae Adams is pretty fucking good and they're supposed to be really good friends uh it sounds like Derek Carr is being kind of like a fake friend, like kind of a bitch. Yeah, yeah.
And I have a quote for you that I would think would sum up the Raiders and doesn't feel great for them right now. This is from Josh Jacobs, who, if you don't remember, didn't get the fifth-year option.
He's been one of the best running backs in the league. He said, I'm tired of dealing with this.
Every day I come here and bust my ass and I see the guys busting their ass and the result is not there. For me, the last four years, the result has not been there.
And quite frankly, I don't know what else to do. That doesn't feel great.
No, it doesn't. But you know what? I'm actually team.
I'm glad that the Raiders did not sign Josh Jacobs to that fifth year. Yeah.
Free Josh Jacobs. Let him go somewhere he's appreciated.
He would be appreciated like literally anywhere else. I don't know why they didn't choose to extend him.
Maybe it's because Mark Davis is poor and he's like, it's a lot of money to a running back, which I somewhat understand. But Josh Jacobs is like a legit threat.
He's awesome. And I just want him to go to – he could be like, okay, here's what I hope happens.
I hope he goes. I hope he gets paid.
I hope he goes to a contending team and he's like a workhorse back for the next year. And then they just kind of like slowly take away his caring responsibilities because he's starting to get older.
Because I feel like he's got a two-year window from now where he's still going to be elite, and then all running backs start to go downhill. I want him to get paid and go somewhere where I can see him play in the playoffs.
Yes, agreed. Big time agree.
The only other thing I had from this game is just it ruled that the Steelers won it. We had it.
We both bet it. Franco Harris game.
They really shouldn't have won. They were like Mike Tomlin was doing the most chicken shit football possible, like fourth and four, kicking a 52-yard field goal in zero-degree weather, kicking that field goal in the fourth quarter when it's like, dude, you need a touchdown here, but it all i just like when sports stories work out like that frank o'harris like passing away five days before his number got retired was so tragic so it was kind of cool the steelers won that game yeah it was very very cool uh i just i might be nitpicking our friend kenny i like kenny a lot kenny if you're listening to this show, I don't like it when you pump fake to Najee

and then you look away and then you just go

and you throw the ball back to Najee

after you just pump fake to him

because it seems to me like that draws a lot of attention

over to him.

And there are a lot of like one, two yard completions.

He just loves pump faking and then throwing the ball

to the guy he was pump faking towards anyways.

Yeah.

Najee's the king of like one yard gains.

Yeah.

Both running and catching.

One yard gain or hurtling somebody.

Those are really the only two shots.

Yeah.

All right.

We have our Sunday games.

Let's do one last ad before we get to Sunday games and we'll do who's back the week.

And by the way, we did tape Lottery Ball Machine for Monday's show and friday's show so don't worry that part is still in so hank still has a chance before the new year yeah before we get back to the nfl games they're brought to you by peloton fitness is not a fad it's a journey i've got my peloton bike right here as a matter of fact hank and i were talking about it last week. We're getting back on the bike.
Bunza Anarchy is going to start riding in the new year. We're going to be doing several rides a week.
Stay tuned. We'll let you know the schedule of that.
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That's one Peloton.com. Okay.
So the bucks did win. So old takes exposed.
Although I'm actually sticking with my take. They suck.
They suck. Like they just, they just had to go to overtime to beat trace McSorley.
They suck. They're not going to do anything in the fucking playoff.
They suck. They're bad.
except if they play the cowboys and it's tom brady against the cowboys yes but they suck they're not a good team and i'm sick of watching their football games because they just play the most boring style of football and it's just always it's they're the kings of getting into the red zone and not being able to get touchdowns i feel like like I've seen every Bucs game this year, and that just happens over and over and over,

and every game is a three-point game one way or the other. It's bad.
They're frustrated. All right, Sunday's games.
Aaron Rodgers is going to do this again, isn't he? Packers 26, Dolphins 20. He's going to do this again, PFT.
I am at least smart enough in my older age to realize when it's going to happen and just start betting on the Packers. So I've just been doing that.
So I'm going to go down with like, he's probably going to make the playoffs and I'll just hopefully win some money until they get to the playoffs and get absolutely shit pumped by the 49ers. Well, you just got to root for Kirk, man could kirk could make all your problems go away you realize i'm in a rock and a hard i am rooting for kirk i'm rooting for kirk this weekend absolutely i am too i'm i'm you will not find a bigger pro kirk cousins podcast than part of my take because it's very very good for both of our teams well for your mentality and for my team if kirk cousins is able to do this i think they're playing at noon.
That's great. The new nightmare strikes again.
The thing I don't like about Aaron Rodgers and his body language right now is he looks like somebody that's already played these games and already won these games and knows exactly what's going to happen during them. So like when he starts losing, when Jalen Waddell takes a pass like 84 yards to the house in the first quarter, Aaron Rodgers has this little smirk on his face.
Like I've already seen this like time, time is a flat circle and I've experienced it. I've been through the looking glass and I know that two is going to throw three interceptions in the second half.
So I, I know where your fear is coming from because he does have the quiet confidence like a shaman told him exactly he some people like the jets have the uh the coin that predicts every single game aaron rogers has had an ecuadorian shaman tell him exactly the outcome of every single game this year and what the playoff picture is going to look like and he already knows yep it is he has that smirk it's fucking brutal to watch i think they're going to do it and uh yeah i mean to uh if i want to do to anon real quick it was unseasonably cold in miami so cold that they did the alert where like iguanas might fall out of the trees because they get so cold and they freeze and they just fall how are you you supposed to play quarterback when you know Iguanas could be falling out of the trees? Like that's not fair to him, his mentality. You can't expect him to perform under those conditions.
But holy shit, did he suck? If we're taking the Tua non-cap off, everything that everyone has said about Tua was right in this game where some of those

throws were just so so bad and he looked so so bad and Mike McDaniel after said on Tua's psyche

it's a challenge can't let things snowball I'm confident he'll be able to get through that that

doesn't feel confident to be like can't let things snowball snowball, and it's a challenge. I don't feel the – there's not a lot of confidence that he'll get through that.
It feels like it's snowballing and it's bad, and this game was set up for the Dolphins to win. They had chances to step on the Packers in the first half, and they didn't take them.
And the Packers, credit to Matt LaFleur, because he started going for it on fourth down, taking risks, being like, we got to win this game. But holy shit, did Tua fucking suck.
Oh, man. Yeah, the second half was really bad.
And this is why I'm in the Talia band, not Tuanan. I like his brother better.
But as a bit of aiding comfort to you, I think he'll be okay because they do get to play the Patriots next week and they get to play the Jets after that. Now, even if they lose to the Patriots, they still have an 82% chance of making the playoffs if they can just beat the Jets at home.
So I think they're going to be okay. It does seem like Mike McDaniel, if he's making a list of things that he has to do this week, number one is say nice things to your quarterback and make sure that he knows that he's good at football.
That's not really what you want your coach to have to worry about, but in this case, I think he's going to have to. But if he can just beat the jets then he gets in the playoffs then it's the dolphins against the chiefs in the first round of the playoffs probably and that game's just going to kick ass yeah that's going to be i can't wait for that game that's going to be so many points and i actually think that that the uh the chiefs would have a hard time i feel like the dolphins would match up well against them Yeah Yeah.
I mean, it would, the two is just bad and he has like the best receivers in the world. So good.
They're so good. If you put any other quarterback with those receivers, it would be lights out.
I, it's just, I want to be a two and on. I put a bet on him.
Pretty much. He's been bad since I the bet on him to win the MVP.
But, yeah, it's bad, and his psyche is bad, and it's going to snowball because Mike McDaniel said he can't let it snowball, which means it will snowball. Mike McDaniel is also just obsessed with snowballs.
Yeah, two is bad. It was bad, and I don't – and it was a bad experience other than the fact that, like I said at the beginning here, I have the foresight to start betting on the Packers when I know that they're going to run the table.
So at least I had that. But everything else, like I was just hoping, praying for a Dolphins one-point win, and Tua just could not deliver whatsoever.
That last interception was so gross. He had two really bad ones.
He threw a dime to Jalen Waddle in the first half, though. It was a fucking spot-on pass that Waddle ran 80 yards with afterwards.
But I guess the good news, if you're a Dolphins fan, is you guys very easily could have won this game and Tua played probably the worst game of his career maybe. No, I mean the Chargers game.
Oh, yeah, that one was worse. He's had a couple bad ones.
He's had a stretch. This was to his worst home game of his career, I think.
Well, and it doesn't really help that the Dolphins are like last week. They lost to the Bills, but it felt like a moral victory because they looked right again and they fought and played really tough.
And this week it just all fell apart in a very winnable game. And like you said, Aaron Rodgers has this scripted.
He's living in a simulation. He knows he's going to run the table.
He knows he's going to get to playoffs. He probably knows he's going to get shit pumped by the 49ers too.
Well, here's the thing. So we've got a couple opportunities for you here big cat one um if kirk cousins can beat the packers next week please then their their playoff odds go way way down they're probably not going to make it at that point or even if he beats the vikings if if if aaron rogers beats the vikings he has to play against jared and the lions and if jared beats the pack, then they're not getting the playoffs no matter what.
So Jared can take that away from him. Jared can be the hero that you need.
I need it. I need it.
I need it. All right.
Speaking of bad quarterbacks, last game, Rams 51, Broncos 14. Holy shit, what a game.
They robbed us of voting Russ the MVP. They stole that, stopped the steal.
They didn't let us vote. Russell Wilson threw three interceptions.
One of them was caught. The second one he had, he was two first quarter interceptions.
The second one had an all-time clip where patrick star was announcing it on nickelodeon um was literally a cartoon character was announcing russell wilson's implosion of a game uh he had the he got benched at the end of the game where he kept his helmet on with the straps on being like let me back in coach i want to cook he also had the moment where his entire offensive line tried to fight Brett Rippin and Rippin and also he had a moment where he talked to the offensive line with a football in front of his face as if someone was trying to steal the codes he was telling them just an all in all all like just atrocious performance but he did he did throw a touchdown pass which means he has the same amount of touchdown passes as bathrooms in his house so he has that going for him i thought it was it was bad uh when he was doing the thing where he was hiding his mouth talking to his offensive lineman yeah um but i thought thought he was just talking to a football. I thought that Russell was just having an honest goodness conversation like, why have you forsaken me? Yeah.
I've done everything that you've asked me to, and you just turn your back on me like this. I think it'd be funny if the NFL, just for fun, flexed the Broncos into another primetime game.
I'd watch it. I would too.
at this point is it's gotten so bad that it's funny now that i like watching the broncos and blowed where now we can have the conversation um who's more at fault is it russ or is it hackett yeah well i think i i think that it's russ it is russ and hackett um nice guy he's gonna be fired he tried his last ditch effort uh shaving a goatee which I like that where he's just like I'm Nate now I have a goatee I'm a different guy I threw out the fact that like if you're Nathaniel Hackett why don't you do the Ben McAdoo benching Eli for Geno or the Mark Trestman when he benched Cutler for Jimmy Clawson like just one last pride thing bench the guy that got you fired and just be like you know what I mean just next week just say Russ is healthy but he's benched I know I'm fired but I'm going to stick it to him because I don't want to fucking deal with this and he's the reason why I'm getting fired so I need to have some personal pride to know that I was the one who benched Russell Wilson. I actually think it might be better.
I think he just wants to let Russell Wilson go out there and hang himself with his own rope. Just like, look what I have to deal with as head coach.
He probably wants it to get worse and worse and worse so that the whole world can look at that and be like well maybe nathaniel hackett's not the worst head coach to ever coach in the nfl because after all he does have russell wilson playing quarterback for yeah so i yeah it's a shame too because the danger which is catching a lot of strays the danger which is actually legitimately good sandwich it keeps getting memed out there and all i'm saying to those people is

just like maybe try the sandwich before you insult it before you like it's actually i feel bad for

the danger which because it's associated with russell wilson it's not fair it's not fair to

the sandwich it really isn't it's not i had a thought in this game which tells you how bad

russell wilson is is zach wilson better than russell wilson no no it's not dude russell

I'm not going to, Russell Wilson is that bad right now. Yeah, no, the two worst quarterbacks are definitely named Wilson right now.
It's so bad. I actually was like, is Zach Wilson maybe a little bit better? Because Russell Wilson can't even do the things that he used to do where he'd throw the moon balls and like in and spin out of the pocket he's just beyond lost and it's it's there was like a third and 14 where he just kind of sadly ran into a sack was like I'm just done with this I he really is just so lost as a human as a football player definitely as a human as a human yes and I'm i'm getting dangerously close to feeling bad for him i don't want to be there i i don't i don't i mean the patrick no i don't i don't so was so funny when patrick was like oh that's the other team uh i guess he's like partially big ben's walking boot but um zach wilson i think let's not let's not even say that russell wilson's as bad as i they're both bad as Zach.
They're both very bad. They're both funny in terms of how bad they are.
They both love moms. We know that about them.
That's a fact. But I don't think that Russ Wilson, you can't.
That's going a little bit too far, Big Cat. I agree.
He's definitely better than Zach Wilson. I agree.
But the thought popped in my head, which means that it's closer than you think.

Watching Russell Wilson play today, I was like, I think Zach Wilson might be on the same level as him.

That's how bad he is.

And I also want to just give a shout out to the Broncos defense because they fought very hard for 15 weeks. And then you could see the moment that they quit today.
It was like watching a college bowl game. And they should have quit a long time ago.
So I'm giving them retroactive credit to making it all the way to week 16 before they full all-in-all-out quit, because they totally quit in this game. There's never been a unit that deserves to quit more than the Broncoscos defense when they quit today I don't blame them at all I don't blame them at all in fact like this is the perfect time for them to quit in a standalone game where everybody can see just how bad they've had it for so long just do this little thought experiment here if you put Russell Wilson on the Jets and you put Zach Wilson on the Broncos I think the Jets win one to two more games than they have won so far i think the broncos are winless i don't know if they're winless they definitely don't have that six second quarter that they had last week remember zach wilson was five and two as a starter to start the year that is that is true that's so it's so crazy to think about like

he he he it's just a fact fact or fiction he won more games as starting quarterback than russell wilson this year that's just a fact yep that's a fact um and for the rams i think we probably have to give sean mcveigh a coach of the year vote because the fact they have five wins is crazy and I'm happy for Baker.

They were

said on the broadcast, they're like,

Sean McVeigh... injured like i think you can just be like yeah i'm a really good football coach i everyone got injured yeah also i think sometimes announcers just say that when they don't have anything else to talk about like yeah sean mcveigh has had a bad season as an nfl coach and they just look at him and he's upset on the sideline and they do terry bradshaw they're like i think sean mcveigh wants to kill himself yeah like look yeah look how bad his football team is but it was uh it was it was nice to see baker succeed he was the nvp it is fucking bullshit that nickelodeon took that away from us they wouldn't let us vote for anybody that was on the broncos that's how bad this game was because you know that they had a little conversation about it they had to they knew that we're gonna we're going to exercise our democratic right and that we're going to go to the polls and if we were in line we're going to stay in line and vote and they had a conversation about part of my take and they said we can't let them give it to the losing quarterback again this year so if it's a blowout we're not even going to have it as an option to vote for anybody from the other team that's how bad this game was at the start of the third quarter they're like yeah let's just not put any broncos on there because there's no chance in hell they're going to come back and win this game.
It would have been an all-time backfire if the Broncos had come back and then Baker ends up getting it as a loser. But they knew exactly what they were doing.
It's such bullshit. Like, fuck you, Nickelodeon.
You know how many kids out there were deprived of their American right to vote for Russell Wilson for MVP? Disgusting. It's crazy.
It's crazy. And shout out Hank.
He won the Hungry Dog. Rams Packers.
He also, we have an internal bet on the part of my group chat. We said we're going to do a tight show because just me and PFT.
It was set at 130. I think we blew over that.
So he he's won two in a row let's see if he wins three in a row with the lottery ball coming up right how long was the show like two hours i was we're at two hours i think we we we caught up and talked for the first 20 minutes before we started recording but we still yeah he was right it love football. You get talking ball with the boys and it's hard to stop.

PFT and I didn't get to watch games together this week.

There's a lot of shit we had to talk about.

We didn't get to fire off takes to each other while we were watching games,

so we had everything.

All right, should we wrap up with who's back of the week?

Yeah, let's do it.

All right, who's your who's back, PFT?

My who's back of the week is my back, and we've been talking about this a little bit offline, big cat. You've gone through some back injuries of your own.
I know Hank is dealing with some as well. I got my back blown out last year.
I got my back blown out again, uh, on Thursday, max actually blew my back out. Uh, he was actually filming it.
So you'll be able to watch that. I can't tell you can't tell you what it is exactly i was doing i will say um it's going to be a very embarrassing reason why my back got blown out um and so we'll we'll be releasing that on video but my my body's just broken down i was doing a mental inventory of all the stuff that's happened to me in the past year it's been a bad year for my body big cat a really bad year.
I've still got like 10 kidney stones in my body somewhere. I don't know what happened to them.
I stopped following up with my doctor about that. My UCL got injured with a golf simulator thing that we did.
I fractured my rib cartilage trying to catch a football pass from Billy. I got COVID twice in the span of like two weeks because I don't know, the CDC called me and asked me how that was possible.
And now I'm dealing with my back, which I was in bed for the last two days, all day, Christmas Eve, all night, the night before that, I could not move yesterday, just back spasms, sheer pain, terror. Big Cat finally told me to get a back brace, which I got.
so I'm able to walk around basically it's it's tough like they always say like when you turn 30 that's a rough year they're right like my 29th year was as bad as it gets so hopefully you know i get on the other side of 30 and uh really get my body in shape that's why we're doing peloton that's why we're getting back on bun's anarchy it's um it's always bad too when when you know we're the same age with i mean you're 29 but we're you know one day apart which is still crazy uh that we are but when you have an injury and it's like i have the whole playbook and i'm like oh yep here's what you got to do this this and this so you don't even have to see a doctor i've seen so many doctors about my back but i see i i i embrace it because uh i think that it's a it's a fun time capsule for day one awls like just like this show right now where it's just the two of us this is a fun capsule where you get to see our bodies break down you get to see me battle being a dad like you get to see you know we're going to be doing this podcast till we're in our deathbeds and uh you'll get to watch the whole thing we're basically just taping uh boyhood it's just manhood the whole podcast is just manhood you get to watch all the trials and tribulations of getting older and thinking you can do stuff that young people can do having you know terrible uh heartburn and and not being able to drink anymore and just all these things it's it's it's a it's a cautionary tale for all of our younger listeners that father time is undefeated unless you're tom brady it's like it's like boyhood or the uh the very beginning of the movie up hopefully not that one because one because fuck Disney for putting that at the beginning of a kid's movie. Fucked them forever.
But yeah, I'm doing better thanks to the sage advice that you passed on to me. And also, I've dealt with a back injury before, so I knew when I was out with Max and I took one wrong step, I knew that it was about to be bad.
And I was like, fuck it. Let's just keep going keep going and i'll deal with the consequences tomorrow that's um that's that's 20s mentality right there and as i enter my 30s i can't be thinking like that anymore i would recommend uh the doctor i saw for my back but uh i think he's dead because i i think i've told this story but i went when last time i out my back, I went to get a steroid shot.

And I was just having casual conversation with the doctor.

And he was like, I think he either went to Cornell or somewhere else.

He was like, yeah, I'm Cornell class of 58.

I was like, wait, what?

And I did the math.

He's like, yeah, I'm actually retiring in three months.

And then before he gave me the steroid shot in my back, he dropped the needle. So I don't know if that guy's still alive.
But we can find someone else. That's okay.
I've got Billy Football. He'll order me some research chemicals.
All right. My who's back of the week is Dirk.
I just want to give a shout out to Dirk. That statue the Mavericks put up of Dirk, maybe one of the coolest statues you can have.
Like, you know, every team has statues, but the fallback jumper, fucking perfect. Absolutely nailed it.
And it was just a nice reminder that Dirk was one of the funnest guys to watch play basketball. And I do feel bad because he's had a couple interviews where he's like, yeah, I probably played a couple years too long

because I can't walk anymore.

Yeah, his back got fucked up too.

Yeah, but you got a statue, so that's cool.

Yeah, maybe one day I'll have a podcasting statue.

Something to think about.

If I sacrifice all these years at this.

But yeah, the Dirk fadeaway thing, it's awesome

because it really fulfills the two things that a statue should be. One, it should be giant.
and number two

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I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know The Dirk fadeaway thing, it's awesome because it really fulfills the two things that a statue should be.

One, it should be giant.

And number two, it should actually have a head and a face and a body and arms when you're building a statue of somebody.

That's generally what you want to go for.

And realistically, talking not about Sean Taylor, but the third is when you see a statue, you should just envision that play. And that's just an iconic.
Perfect. Yeah, it's perfect.
Dirk. Um, by the way, the other funny memory of, of back problems, another one where like AWLs who've been with us for a very long time.
Remember when I threw out my back last time we had to do a podcast from my couch and i was pissing in gatorade bottles i was i couldn't get all i literally could not move off my couch for like three days so hank and you came over and we just did the it put the mics like i just laid down and did the whole thing laying down yeah i peed i peed in a bottle last night i was trying to think i woke up in of the night and had to go to the bathroom. And I thought to myself, how am I supposed to do this? It's physically impossible for me to move and get off this bed.
So, so listen, when you got to go, you got to go. I actually, I wish I was in New York right now because I think I have like three break in case of emergency pain pills from the last time I threw out my back, which probably have no, they probably actually don't work because they lose.
I think they lose their strength, but I saved them because I was like, if I throw out my back again, I need these to survive. And they just been sitting there.
So sorry. No, it's okay.
You could have used them. It's right.
I've been, I've been taking naproxen, which is just basically, it might as well be a placebo. It's like essentially taking four aspirin at once.
Yeah. You know you're getting old when you have to save a few of, when you get prescribed pain pills and you have to save a few just in case you hurt yourself again.
Yeah. You're like, I need this just in case I hurt myself and I need to survive the like 24 hours of back spasms that come afterwards.

Yeah.

You know me.

I'm not a drug guy.

And I did watch Dope Sick.

So now I'm just terrified any time a doctor prescribes me any pain pills.

Yeah.

It's.

Yeah.

Don't.

I mean, when I did it, it was like they gave me 10 and I took like six.

So, yeah, that shit is very fucked up. All right, Max, who's back? James Harden Rumors.
Oh, man. What's up with the strip clubs in Philly? I don't know.
The Sixers are rolling right now. Turn your camera on.
Imagine if Max had his shirt off. Yeah, I mean, he's playing really well, playing at an MVP level.
You guys trashed me for saying that earlier. But, I mean, he's been insane.
He went for like 30-20 the other night. 30-10 tonight, or today.
But, yeah, the rumors suck. It looks like he's doing the whole song and dance that he does, every team he goes to.
But hopefully we can sway him throughout the year. Did you know, like when he went to the Sixers, though, there was an element where you were like, this time it's going to be different.
He's going to love us. I still might think that.

I'm not giving up that.

The guy has commitment problems.

Yeah, that's fine.

He's actually – it's probably because the Thunder trading him away.

Yeah.

Like from that moment on, he was like, I can't trust anyone.

Not even us. Yeah, not even – well, yeah, I mean, yeah, Philly fans, like, they would – I mean, I guess you guys are loyal to a fault, but if he – that rumor probably makes, like, half of Philly already hate him, right? No, no.
Everything that I've seen is just, like, we'll win you over, we'll win you over. Not angry.
That's like the mob being like, it would be a real shame if a brick came through your window. James Harden will win you over.
We won't fucking try to ruin your life, dude. And he was asked about it in the postgame a bunch.
And everything he was saying was like not saying anything not saying anything and then he put in I don't know where you got that report but then he would go back to like deny like so obviously a true report but then every single like headline in Philly was like Harden says quote I don't know where you found that report like the only thing they take from it is like I don't know where you found that report. Like, the only thing they take from it is, like, I don't know where you found that.
Not even saying it's not true. Yeah, like, he was being so wishy-washy, but it was like, I don't know where you found that report.
And it's like, yep, that's it. He's staying.
Also, on the Sixers, have you been paying attention, Max? George Nyang is playing pretty good this season. Yeah.
Nyang Gang. Yeah, Nyang Gang, the minivan.
We gotta get him back on. We gotta get him back on.
Alright, so Wednesday, best of. And then Friday we will have a new show live from the Arizona Bowl.
Make sure you watch 4 30 Eastern Friday, December 30th, Ohio versus Wyoming. And, uh, let's kick it to ourselves when we pre-taped the lottery ball to see if Hank can win one.
Love you guys. Okay.
We're back in the studio. Uh, Hank, I just realized because we're recording this all on December 23rd, 2nd, if you get one of these, you're just going to have to sit on it for a week.
No. Hopefully we're...
Wow, imagine if he got the number and then he died. I got good news for you, Hank.
You're not going to get it, so you don't have to worry about that. Yeah, that's true.
You're not going to get it. Okay, so go ahead.
Numbers. Have you ever gotten this? No.
17. He took 17.
I'm going to go 10. I'll go 28.
Dickheads. I'll go 18.
Sebastian has 39. 20.
20. Come on! You're not going to get it, man.
You're not going to get it, dude. Shut up! You're never going to get it.
You're never going to be 17. Never going to get it.
Never going to get it. Never going to get it.
Never going to get it. 31.
31. Didn't get it.
Didn't get it. Surprise, surprise.
One more? Yeah, well, we're going to tape it in a second. All right, two more for the year.
See everyone for Wednesday. Best of.
Love you guys. I'll'll say it anyway Today is my day to find you shining away

I'll be coming for your love again

Shining away

I'll be coming for your love again

You've been so good to me

Give you everything

You've been so good to me Your love inside me Take on me Take on me Take on me Take on me Take on me Take on me Thank you. Oh, needless to stay I'm all set in

But be some little way

I'm all set in

But life is okay

Say after me

Oh, it's better to be safe than sorry

Say after me

Oh, it's better to be safe than sorry

Things that you say

Yeah, is it a lie, love?

Just to play my worries away

You're all the things I've got to remember

You're shy and awake

Love comes for you in many ways

Thank you. Easy to light up, but display my worries awake.
You are the things I've got to remember.

You're shy and awake.

Love comes for you when you like.

You're shy and awake.

Love comes for you when you like.

You've been shy and awake.

Drink on me.

Drink on me. Drink on me.

Drink on me. Drink on me.
Thank you.